Of All Things........Bathroom!

So I've been invited over for a final girls' night out at a friends house tonight.
And ironically, a thought that never fails to enter my head is, Don't forget to go to the bathroom before you leave home!
And I'm not saying this to a child like a parent would....I'm saying this to..myself.
It's not even a conscious active thought anymore, just somewhere in the recesses of my brain.

You see, i have this thing with bathrooms.
And over the years I've tried to psychoanalyze it....and I've come to the conclusion, it's all my parents' fault!
Aha, blame the parents, easy right?
But actually, I'm serious....See, both my parents have OCD...that's obsessive compulsive disorder for those not in the know. And both mum and dad are neat freaks....Their bathroom was just a no-no go zone! If you used it, you had to leave it JUST AS YOU FOUND IT!!!......And I'm not even kidding about that. Lol.
So, us, their poor children, having both forces of nurture and nature combined.........Results, in all my issues Bathroom!

We must have driven my mother crazy, because as kids, we would never....and i repeat, Never, use a bathroom outside home unless we really couldn't help it. It was that bad.
If we couldn't hold it, we had to go home. LOL.
A few scary experiences is what led us to the above situation.
The home situation was that of nice clean bathrooms. And we never had grandparents in some village somewhere, to expose us to a different way of things. Our grandparents were right there in the city with us, and had nice clean bathrooms too.
So having to visit friends or other relatives outside the city, or in areas of the city less desirable.........Ummmmmm.......there was going to be a problem.

Let's start with the relatives within the city, but who did not have a constant supply of water. You could smell the bathroom, 5 miles away.
So that option could be struck off the list right away.

Then the other relatives who had not yet had the opportunity to embrace technology....whose houses were ancient beyond written history.......I remember the first time i went to such a bathroom.....there was no bathroom/toilet.....there was a hole in the ground.
Now picture little miss perfect barbie, with my horrified look, asking, "what is that?!"
THAT was not happening!

Going out of the city was even more of a bathroom adventure.
The bathrooms were not even located in the houses!
"Mum, where have you brought us!?"
Confusion and horror is all that would keep streaming through the brain.:-)

Let's not even talk about the train journeys we had to take from Nairobi down to the Kenyan Coast......the toilets on board, are more of the, hole in the tracks affair!

So, my life routine was always, use toilet before leaving home, use toilet after getting back home.
Don't drink too much fluids when out, and ONLY use bathroom IF it is a dire emergency.
And even that would mean spending the first 5 minutes or so, trying to wipe everything down, then laying tissue paper down all over the seat, before i get to work. hahahaha.......
And some of you can't deny you have done the above either!.....I always have at least 2 packets of tissue in my handbag for all the above activities.
That's worked perfectly well for 20+ years now, with none the wiser to my bathroom phobia.

I'd even come to sort of relax about it all, easing up a bit with all the anxiety attached to using bathrooms that were not in whichever home i was living in. UNTIL i came to the desert. And alllllllllll those childhood nightmares were re-lived all over again.
I don't know what it is about people in this part of the world and their lack of bathroom etiquette. I really just don't get it. Not like they don't have the facilities.
Baffles the hubby everyday!
The magic tricks and action stunts people pull while trying to use the toilet, leave a lot to the imagination! I think those who do not know that toilet can be sat on nowadays, still want to squat on top of the seats..............try aiming right from that position and see the results!
It's just a complete and utter mess, smells horrible, wet floors, and all sorts of other things everywhere. Gives me the shivers...literally.
You do not want to use a public bathroom here!
Recipe for a complete and utter heart stopping nightmare for me.

I think this is why i secretly have always wanted to be Japanese.
Aren't they just so clean!

Ironically, next door, in UAE, most bathrooms are always clean!

After i got married, one of the very first things i did was set up the bathroom right.....In all my unbound joy, i went and bought new towels and toilet accessories. Got to have my pot-pourri and my candles, plus my lovely looking printed toilet paper.....:-) This and that, and more!
The hubby took one look and said, "Stop feminizing my house!"

I feminized his house:-)

The Desperate Housewife

Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah...............
Never heard of it, until my then fiance mentioned it.
Industrial city, western part of Saudi Arabia, right on the Red Sea, largest oil drill in the country.
Hmmm.....not bad....or so i thought.

I came to Saudi with some measure of hope....that the innate arabinism (is that a word? lol) would be overridden by the principles of Islam. After all, this is the birthplace of Islam isn't it? Of equality, honesty, justice, tolerance, compassion....and all those things that make you go warm inside........
I quickly came to realize........NOT.
First shocker was, contracts are not really honoured, so the verbal contract i had with the major hospital here all but went up in a sand storm me thinks.
They didn't like how i looked it turns out....I had too much of a tan for their liking.....I might scare the patients.....
Neither did they like the sight of my passport...it had 'dark continent' written all over it...Surely, i must think like a monkey if i come from that end, don't i?
Sigh.

I got used to being driven around by my chauffeur....oops, read that as being the hubby....
And i got used to sitting around doing nothing much for days on end........days merged into nights and nights merged into days.
I sometimes felt i must be in a nut house.
Maybe I've been incarcerated and i don't know.

So.....how did the desperate housewives do it then??
I may be in no Wisteria Lane, but Plan B was going into swift action.......Going grocery shopping at 10pm in super high heels just makes my day:-)
It really does have a high of its own. Try it!
Call it a coping mechanism....I call it spicing up my life.
And here we go, started the run-ins with the Arabs. LOL.
I had now totally challenged their way of life......from walking around in colourful clothes, with my face uncovered and lo and behold, make-up on(!), to speaking out loud wherever i was, and EVEN bending over to reach for something at the bottom shelf in the store.
How scandalous!
can her husband be a man and take control of her??
Their society was going to the dogs with my wanton display with what they all deemed was arrogance. And how dare a Non-Arab woman of colour lock horns with the Bedouins of the desert?
Their first encounter with a true lioness of Africa me thinks.

Life pretty much turned into a Tom-Jerry situation....raising of eyebrows and constant stares.
All the more to feed the ego.
I am the star of my very own reality show.
Countless other women have been cowed down into submission with their ways......I still refuse to bow down to anyone other than the Almighty.
And so i forge ahead.

The Desperate Housewife of Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah lives to wreck havoc another day!....:-)))

Madinah madinah....

Spending the last weekend in the city of Madinah was kinda bitter sweet for me...
Having lived here in Saudi Arabia for 9 months now, i couldn't wait to leave....yet being in Madinah, at the same time, i was sad to leave.

Madinah is a city in the western region of Saudi. the 2nd most holy city for muslims.
It was the birth place of the Islamic society and is also where Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was buried. There is a huge mosque built right next to the Prophet's grave, and is known as the 'Prophet's mosque'.
Out of all the places in Saudi, Madinah is known for its warm hospitality.....for the people being 'different'...for there being a sense of peace in the air....
and it truely is all that, and more........so unlike the rest of the Kingdom.
I felt all of that from the very first time that i went to Madinah.
A sense of inner peace. And i felt the same feeling wash over me as i made my last prayer there.
Saying goodbye this past weekend was a mixture of emotions.

My husband has been working here in Saudi....he decided to try it out...and so after we got married, i decided to try it out.
I wanted to experience life here for myself....to see whether all the movies and books were on point or not.
And as a muslim, to come to the birth place of my faith, was a journey many other muslims wish for everyday. So i took the plunge. As i do with everything else in life:-) I've survived fairly well i think so far.

Life in the desert has had its moments....beautiful friendships set in the midst of all the xenophobia around. Its a place of 2 extremes....the very same people who will be ultra warm and gracious in their homes, will be the very same people who will not return your greeting on the street......
It never makes sense to me.

As i spend the next couple of days packing up all our possessions, thoughts and emotions run through me unabound.

Here goes nothing...

I've never tried blogging before....never thought i had the flow of words to stick to it and make it worthwhile, but friends tell me differently.. :-)

A little bit about myself.....I am a medical practitioner, originally from East Africa, currently living in the Middle East....about to celebrate my one year anniversary with my husband.
Currently being a desperate housewife in the desert, seriously hoping to get an oasis soon.
And also, currently contemplating what it means to have been on this planet for almost 3 decades....

Life has taken me places i never thought i'd ever get to, and down paths that were sometimes too dimly lit to see what's infront of me....but somehow, there was always a corner to turn to when things got pitch black........and i am scared of the dark by the way!

I think for every 1 word my husband uses, I use 10, so I'm sure I will find something to say at some point.......i hope!
Stick around, and jump into my crazy unpredictable life.