And she didn’t send the dish back?!?

If you go to a middle east grocery store, ask there for Egyptian rice. In my personal view, I like the way with the addition of the milk the way the rice gets thick and almost similar to Thai sticky rice.

Abu Sinan – I want to sample Manal’s seleek when we are next in the WDC area!

One thing my Saudi family members picked up on right away here in Houston is the openness…especially at the medical center. One may be waiting for an appointment and a total but concerned stranger will begin a conversation and naturally ask “Why are you here? What is wrong with X?” Or even when just walking around the area or where we are presently staying, people naturally say ‘hello’ and seem to enjoy engaging in conversation. Unlike Saudi, if eye contact and exchange of greetings is not made, one wonders what’s wrong!

If I may try to speak on behalf of Aafke for once, she also noticed when visiting me the openness and friendliness of Texans.

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Carol Fleming wrote: > @Munaqabah – no…I put the dessert in a glass dish since it also > highlighted the beauty of the dessert which was like a truffle with > layered fruits. > > On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 9:43 PM,

It is lovely to hear of your own love story too! How long have you been in the Kingdom?

Dr. Majed’s office is not too far from Aziziyah mall (the one off of King Fahad Road). At times he has also made house calls too. I’ve no doubt you will feel very comfortable when you see his practice. In fact, if you look at some of my flikr photos (link at right side of blog) you will see photos of Dr. Majed and his clinic when I interviewed him for Saudi Television Channel 2.

Best Regards, Carol

I saw in your other comment that you found my post on Dr. Majed. He is the best vet in KSA in my view – professional, caring, compassionate and oh so knowledgable.

It’s great to hear how you have adopted this kitty!

Best Regards, Carol

Thank you for that
I stand by you in recognition of the great efforts that Drs and other society members as well as the government have done in the past few years. I often find myself (and my wife for that matter) drawn into dialogs or debates with people specially outside Saudi about the ’slow’ pace that these efforts are going in. These debates, if you will, are difficult to result in an understanding from the other party to the delicate situation Saudi society has, no to mention the inevitable question we get in these conversations of “why is it taking this long?” or even “this will not result in any change in your lifetime” in general tone of the chat.
I do acknowledge that we (the Saudis) need more leaders of society that set a high level of tolerance. This tolerance that is unfortunately fought and “intolerable” in some extreme views. Yes we have some that are doing their best to achieve that.
I strongly believe this will take a long time to reach.

I also agree with your opinion that the architectural aspects of some urban design areas lead people to be more leaning towards getting to know their neighbours or not. adding as well to this is the cultural backgrounds and upbringing of the inhabitants.
My 70+ year old next door neighbour told me he was surprised to find that a young Saudi guy and his wife made the effort to know him and visit and chat with him every now and then, keeping him company has made him rethink what ever perceptions he had about our part of the world.