Janaki's Blog

I can’t believe this!!!  We are going to have Thursday classes in school!!!! Noooo!!! (For those who do not know about Saudi Arabia, here the weekend is Thursday & Friday.) My Thursday schedule is to sleep and get up late and then study after half an hour.  Afternoon I have to go to my drawing class at 5. Dad said that we would protest against this, so I am not going to attend this Thursday class.  But when we saw the circular that said our field trip is on next Sunday, it lifted our spirits up.  Oh, and Happy Diwali!! Tomorrow we have a holiday because of Diwali. And on Wednesday we are also allowed to wear colour dress.  Yaaaaay!!!!!!! I am so excited. Dad had subscribed National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler’s magazine and National Geographic Kids magazine for me. In one ofthem the following line was written; ‘Cheetahs remain highly fashionable in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, where a cub can fetch upwards of $10,000. A rich, young man

“Vrooom Vrooooooom”, Dad turned the key and the engine came to life with a start. Since it was Hajj holidays and Dad also had 5 days holidays, we decided to go Al Khobar. It was a great day and the weather matched perfectly with our moods. It was neither hot nor cold. October was certainly a great month. Sometime later, we were far from the city and the car sped along the Riyadh - Dammam highway.  The highway cut through the desert until we reached Dammam. It had smooth golden sand which did not have a single foot- print on it. There were some sand-dunes too. Camels or the “ship of the desert” grazed at the areas where there were patches of grass here and there. Finally when we reached Khobar, we became a little more joyful since we had sat for 4 hours in the car. We were simply longing to stretch our legs. Our hotel was called the Tulip Inn Sea View . It was a 4-star hotel, but not so good like we expected.   I went straight into the bedroom and drew the c

“Janu! Janu! Wake up!” I opened my eyes and stared at Mom groggily. “Get up” mom urged me. “Remember we have to go to the farm.” Helped by my mother I got up and blinked until the room came into focus. I stared at my parent’s bed, Dad had already gotten up. I washed my face and sleepwalked into the living room. One hour later we were ready to go to the farm. One of uncle Loy friends worked in farm and we were looking forward, especially me, to see all the cow, goat and sheep since I love animals. Most of my compound friends were coming too along with Melvin and his elder brother Milan. To my joy Alana and Niharika climbed into our car (I hate sitting alone) and we sped off. As we went further we saw the hanging bridge of Riyadh and the beautiful view of mountains on both sides. Later when we reached the fields which spread out like a green carpet, my eyes caught a strange figure in the middle. It was a scare-crow! It had an Arabic dress and a scarf as its head.  We giggled and poin