Cara Louise's Blog

President Obama is in Riyadh this week and yesterday it took over an hour to get back to the residence as police cars were lined up at intervals of a few yards the full length of King Fahd Road, with officers holding machine guns watching the highway from the hard shoulder and every bridge, intersection and paving. The traffic was at a standstill in various places. I never knew there were so many police officers in any city in the world, let along all brought together along one major road - to protect one person.

Last week I got caught in floods in Riyadh. I had to stop by the Medical Centre with my driver and as we came out, he frowned and looked up at the sky.

"Rain. Problem."

Coming straight from England, it was barely enough for me to bother with an umbrella. I laughed. "Don't worry. I'm from England. We're used to rain."

"Rain in England - no problem. Rain in Saudi Arabia - big problem."

We got into the mini-van and started back to my residence.

5 mins later the major arterial roads were awash and turned into rivers.

Cars stood abandoned in the middle of the road and drivers tried to avoid the water by mounting the steeply sloping hard shoulder.
Men in white thobes, picked up their hems and waded sandal clad through the floodwater.
One driver left his car and picked his way along a narrow ledge of a wall, clutching the wire fence for balance, while a torrent of flood water 6 inches deep poured along the road below him.
At a major junction where the road had been closed, typical Saudi driver fashion, everyone piled in and created a log jam tapestry of skewed about cars so no one could move. A dapper little man with a moustache in a smart black business suit and white shirt got out of his car and began directing the traffic - dripping with water and soaked to the skin. Not a police officer in sight.

One of the things I love about Saudi Arabia - suddenly being confronted by bizzare and vivid images of total craziness

All the main roads back to my residence were closed. The driver went round in circles trying to find a way through. The journey should have taken half an hour. Two hours later we finally arrived back. I didn't mind. My first exciting little adventure less than a week after arriving back in the Kingdom.

I asked my driver if he would be able to get home all right. He assured me he would.

"Thank you so much for all your driving and getting me home. I'm so sorry it took so long."

"No problem. It's my job."

He vanished back into the rain.

After 2 months languishing alone in North Devon, waiting for the long bureaucratic wait for a visa, I am finally at Heathrow, enjoying an Earl Grey tea in Costa Coffee.

Leave tonight for Riyadh, via Beirut. Got to be more exciting than Biddyford (misspelling deliberate) - whatever it may bring.

24 Nov 2015.

Woke up to a clean room but Pamela Settrey style, did it again. Thankful for having found a working socket in which to plug my travel, I felt much better for my morning meditation and cup of Earl Grey. Fish leap out of the lake outside my room, stalked by herons and kingfishers.

There seem to be several people calling themselves managers and coordinators but no one seems to know I booked for food today. Finally a smiley lady gives me a very unyogic White toast and thick sugary strawberry jam but a great strong real coffee that saves my life.

I am reassured by Guru Muk, one of the teachers who is thoroughly lovely. My fellow participants arrive throughout the day and are all really nice.

I walk to the beach – it.s 30 c, cloudy, hot and humid then go to the village with one of my new friends. Back to the nice restaurant beachside for lunch and have to walk back twice, finding myself 70 rupees short. They are so laid back no one minds.

4 pm – initiation with flowers and fire. We meet the other teacher Deep. I like his approach v. much as well as everyone else on the course and feel I am in the right place.

We have a friendly dinner. I come back to write my blog. A rat runs across my room. My sense of smell from Bulgaria was spot on. The manager goes to get a boy but the rat is gone. He tells me they do come in but leave straightaway and don,t hurt.
This is a place in nature and they are a part of it.

I shut up my grapes tightly in a box, hope my furry visitor doesn't,t run over my bed in the night and finish my blog.

First impressions - India is an assault on your senses.

Just made my connections from Delhi via Mumbai and finally Goa but only by abandoning the queues and rushing to the immigration and security officers asking to be fast tracked.

From the air, a giant haze of pollution hanging over Delhi and Mumbai.

Relief to see my driver with my name placard after 2 days exhausting travel.

Soldiers with machine guns hanging out of a small jeep with a hole in the roof outside the airport at Goa.

Taxi ride to yoga centre at night through incredible amount of trees with tiny shacks all strung with lights for Deepa Vali, manic roads with honking, death defying, weaving scooters. Barrage of smells thru open taxi window - Woodsmoke, incense, swampy water...


Arrived about 8 pm, got shown to my room which hadn't,t been cleaned. Beyond exhaustion, I set to work, thankful I never travel without a sponge cleaner. The room smelt of my rat infested hovel in Bulgaria and I wondered why I put myself thru this travel lark, vowing to stay at home forever.

However, thinking of my friend Pamela Settrey and her Detol wipes, I did her proud and finally unpacked, wondering what I.d let myself in for.

Now summer is drawing to a close, I've finished my home makeover, published another 6 children's books on Amazon and haven't earned any money for a couple of months, I thought about starting to look for a new job - preferably well paid and somewhere hot.

Got as far as reading through a British Council job description, role profile (working together for shared purpose, going the extra mile...etc... yuk!) and 4 page application form for a 2 month contract.

But when I got to the compulsory 300 to 500 hundred word written statement saying why you are suited for this post, I promptly felt exhausted, shut down the laptop and collapsed back onto the sun bed.

Today its back to grey skies and rain over North Devon again. Next week I'll start looking again with a little more effort. Maybe. Just not with BC.

This morning I slept in and for the first time ever, experienced Lucid Dreaming.

I was so excited to find myself actually aware that I was dreaming, as I clambered over a dry stone wall out in the landscape, that I ran about shouting at people, "Hey, I'm dreaming! Do you have a sign or message for me?"

The people I approached were thick, bristly old men in funny hats who turned away as though I were the dumbo.

Hardly archetypal Merlin figures.

The message I took away to my waking hours, was that having finally reached this pinnacle of attainment so highly prized in Buddhist monasteries and esoteric circles, no one else is better equipped to dole out major life advice to me than myself.

Hmm....

I'd only cycled a few minutes ride into the village when I suddenly felt a rush of cold air circling inside the back of my head and a sick feeling spread across my stomach.

I felt a bit better when I got out of the breeze and into the warmth of Tesco's to do my shopping and even mustered enough strength to complain to the manager about their stocking of Israeli samphire as "local produce".

Then as I cycled along the road for the return trip, the sick feeling came back, the pain in my head got worse, spreading across my eyes and I felt like a screaming banshee of cold air was whirling angrily around inside my head.

I thought I was going to expire in the road and that would be the end of my story.

However, I managed to stagger through the door and collapse into bed, begging concerned partner for hot flannels to wrap around my head, which he worriedly provided along with 2 duvets and 2 hotwaterbottles.

But before I got home, with my head pounding along with the peddles, all I could think of was that at least I'd managed to do one good thing for Palestine before I died.

The cold! Freezing north east wind has been stalking the house down here in Devon for the past week.

I'm wearing woolly socks, fluffy slippers and 2 thermal vests, staring at a cold grey sea.

As soon as partner's left the house, I sneak on the heaters. (No, you can't have the heating on - it's in June!)

(You can't possibly be cold! It's 18 degrees!

43 degrees in Muscat when I left.

Weird things about returning to the UK.

My hotel room at Heathrow. OMG! Wail! Everything is so small and poky. I feel like one of those annoying Americans. Gee, everything's so small in England! I already miss the spaciousness of the Middle East. Even if it is desert and wasteland. I can barely turn round in the shower cubicle. I'm going to miss my walk-in showers.

And carpets. OMG. Those fusty smelly things that habour dust mites. I'd fogotten about them. I'm already missing all those sparkling tiled floors that other people clean.

And dogs. Lots of them. Happy, panting dogs that people talk for walks. Not isolated outcasts left to scavenge on sandy wasteland.

Today I went shopping Barnstaple. We had coffee in the sun (before it started raining) and sat outside the museum by the river.

I found myself staring at women walking past in sleeveless tops and wondering, quite shocked, why they didn't cover their arms.