Ras Tanura!

About an hour’s bus ride (free!) from where I live is another compound called Ras Tanura.  It happens to be right on the water.  So they have a beach and a lovely facility.  I don’t know about you, but I would have never predicted that parts of Arabia look like what I imagine the Caribbean to be:

Yes, these waters are what you westerners would refer to as the Persian Gulf.  But in these parts, at least, it’s known as the Arabian Gulf.  (Persia - Iraq - is across the water.)

One of the guys I work with has personally witnessed corporate dumping of waste materials into the gulf.  He says he knows people who have gone swimming in the water who developed unexplainable rashes immediately after.  He has very strong feelings about NOT going into that water.  I only found that out the day after this picture was taken:

But people still swim in it…  (I’m told the local women will go swimming - still clad in their abayas.)    The water certainly looks clean enough here.  But it’s true - there is an oil refinery just down the beach a ways.    (Don’t worry, I didn’t develop any weird rashes…)

It's now the end of February and still a bit cool for the locals. (They’re still wearing jackets and sweaters.  I, on the other hand, have been wearing sort sleeved shirts all winter!)  It’s just starting to turn warm.  I only have a few weeks left till the unbearable heat arrives.  I’m thinking I’ll have a regular appointment on Saturday morning for the next few weeks.

The Inexorable and Bizarre Passage of Time

I am absolutely convinced that time is an artificially created construct.

This is something that I believed, but didn’t really test before coming to Arabia.  It started with the work week, which is Sunday to Thursday.  Then Friday is the Sabbath, followed by Saturday, which is just a Saturday, and then back to work on Sunday.

All the westerners out here will get confused from time to time concerning what day it is – no matter how long they have been here.  And it is strange going to church on Friday and having Saturday be the last day of the week.  And what would normally be Friday – that’s Thursday, and church is the very next day.

Yeah, that’s all weird.  But it’s only compounded by the flight over here.  I get on a plane in Utah in the afternoon.  It flies me to another city (Denver, Atlanta, whatever).  And from that city in the evening it flies me to Europe (Amsterdam, Frankfurt, etc.).  On that flight they bring out a dinner and then everyone tries to sleep and a while later they bring breakfast.  Seems fairly normal, right?

Except for the fact that, when we arrive in Europe, it ain’t breakfast time!

What your body knows is that about 9 hours passed.  And on the plane you had the appropriate number of meals.  But by the time you arrive in Europe your internal clock is all messed up.  You then walk about the airport, which is simply an island –  where all these people are gathered whose concept of the passage of time is confused.  

Time swirls all about, encompassing us all.  At the airport, flights leave at a predetermined time.  But to the international traveler it is all just an event.  A blur.  A portal to pass through.  Time’s passage is focused entirely on your personal experience – rather than by the surrounding area.  What you are experiencing is entirely independent from the time flow you came from as well as the one that you arrived at.

So you get to your next gate, wait a bit, hop on a plane again, and seven hours later you’re in the desert, and it’s the middle of the night.  It feels like you have been travelling forever.  In actuality, you have been travelling for about 23 hours.  You left SLC at 1:30 in the afternoon – on a Friday.  In SLC, 23 hours later would be 12:30 in the afternoon the next day - Saturday.  

But it is now 10:30 Saturday night in Arabia.  And you have to get a few hours of sleep before going to work the very next day – Sunday. If you’re travelling east.

If you’re travelling west… well, this last time I left in the middle of the night.  I saw the passage of dark to light, to dark, to light, to dark again – all on the same day.  I left in the super early morning on Friday.  I travelled for 26 hours and arrived at 8:30 at night – the very same day I left Arabia – Friday.

Like I said, the passage of time is an artificial construct.  These days it isn’t hard at all to step out of it into something else – a coexisting construct.  

Anyway, so here I am.  It’s a Wednesday.  And this morning, as I was walking in to work I was ruminating on the week and the next few days.  For just a fleeting moment my brain understood the following:

1. I would be going to church the day after tomorrow.

2. The day after that would be a Saturday and I would have a break.

3. And that this was the natural order of things – as if, in all the world, there would be nothing other than this.

I had fully accepted, for that moment, my current construct.  And, for that moment, my current construct had completely obliterated yours.  

In my mind.

Bizarre.

Perhaps similar principles dictate the differences and conflicts between cultures.  Between individuals.  Between God and mankind.  Where one fully accepts their personal and current construct – to the exclusion of all the others.

Jet Lag

So I flew back to the desert on Saturday, January 4^th.  I’m told that it takes one day per time zone to feel normal again.

Yup.

Time difference: 10 hours.  Days after my departure till I started writing for my blog again: 10

Freaky!

(Never mind the number of days - 36 - that it took me to post this after writing it...) 

The jet lag was SOOO weird this time.  All week, upon my return, I would be going about my day, and I would suddenly be excruciatingly sleepy for a couple of hours.  I’m not talking about simple head bobbing, foggy, drowsy, drool inducing sleepy.  No, this was worse.

It came on suddenly and caught me unawares.  I would be going about my way and the next thing I would realize was that I was just barely lifting myself out of the quagmire.  Just enough to do something like push a pencil across my desk, and then I would plunge back in.

This pattern repeated itself several times.  I would at some point come up enough for my whole being to scream inside my head, “WHY ARE YOU STILL AWAKE??????”  There were days when my body compelled me to collapse on the bed and sleep.  I have never in my life felt the desire to sleep so intensely.

And then, after about two hours it would pass and I would continue on with the day.  

I would go back to my room, feeling fine.  Get a little drowsy around 8:00.  Push it off.  Go to bed at 10:00, and lie there with my mind engaged and active.

Each day this episode seemed to happen slightly later on than the previous day.  And so, two nights ago, it happened again at 8:00 pm.   This meant that at 10:00 I was wide awake.  But last night it didn’t happen.  At least, not until after I had gone to bed.  I guess that means I’m cured.

Like I said, weird.

So, there’s something for me to look forward to every time I come back to the Kingdom.

Awesome.

And that explains why it took me so long to start blogging after I got back.

It's 2014!!!

A few years ago (back in the last millennium) I don’t think I ever had a directed thought towards anything past the first 10 years or so of this one.  And now look!  We’re almost a decade and a half in!  

Sigh…  I remember quite clearly back when it seemed like a decade was a long time.

Anyway, happy New Year!  It’s not too late to say that is it?  February's not quite over yet.  Looks like it’s time to pull out a wonderful, heartfelt, and belated resolution for me to later break.  Lessee…

Resolve: to keep in better contact with my adoring fans by posting more often to my blog.  (“Well, I stumbled out of the gate on that one, didn’t I?”) 

Resolve: To spend more time in quality pursuits – like writing on my blog.  (“Hmmm… I wonder when The Amazing Race starts up again…”)

Resolve: To step out of my shell and purposefully seek out interesting new experiences that I can document on my blog.  (“As soon as I wake up…”)

2014

No doubt… this one will be filled with myriad challenges, like all the others.  But it’s gonna be a good year.  I can feel it.  Can you?