In checking out a fair number of blogs by people travelling or living abroad for extended periods, I've discovered a trend. People often start out posting a lot. They write ambitiously about posting every few days and for a while they keep it up. Sure enough, after a few weeks, though, the frequency of their posts starts to decline. They go down to twice a week, then to once. By the third or fourth month there's only one post every three or four weeks. And then, abruptly and without explanation, the posts stop. Many times after only 4 or 5 months. It seems, like so many others before me, I too have fallen victim to this trend.
I think the reasons are fairly plain to see. You start out so excited. Everything's new and different. The simplest everyday experiences are instantly noteworthy and as a foreigner in a strange land, nothing fails to warrant comment. But as the time passes, and you get more and more used to your surroundings, your daily life shifts from extraordinary to anything but. You stop looking at everything through the wide eyes of a foreigner. The blog posts stop writing themselves. You find yourself feeling almost burdened by the obligation to continue to post and successive posts seem more forced or like more and more of a stretch. As the frequency of your posts become less and less, you suddenly realize that you've gone a month without posting. After feeling like you've already disappointed your readers and like they've probably already given up on you anyway it's only too easy to stop altogether.
Excuses (or maybe explanations ;)) aside, I'd like to provide some punctuation to my blog.
My time in Saudi has come to a close. I've left a little sooner than I'd originally planned and a little sooner than the fulfillment of my contract would have required. The reason is that I preferred to have a solid month of travel time in the Middle East before Amy and I start our next teaching contract in Honduras (did I mention Amy and I took a contract in Honduras?) I'm currently in Palestine after having spent 9 days in Lebanon, 6 in Jordan, and 2 on the east coast of the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. The trip has been amazing and unbelievably educational to say the very least and I hope to put my thoughts together about my experiences--although I'll resist the temptation to make any promises about future posts.
As for Saudi, I'm extremely satisfied with and would even go so far as to say proud of my decision to go. As with anything in life, there is always something to be gained from experience and I can say unequivocally that I gained a lot from my time there. I accomplished most of my goals, especially after finally being able to travel in the region, and have left a little wiser and definitely not worse off financially.
I also don't want to make it sound like my time in Saudi was some sort of burden or equate it in any way to a prison sentence. In many ways my lifestyle and quality of life wasn't much different than it's been anywhere else that I've lived. I made some really good friends, friends whom I believe I'll be friends with for life. I drank homemade wine at the compound almost every weekend, participated in weekly basketball games and was part of a social network that had frequent get-togethers, parties, and engaged in some pretty regular tom-foolery. In many ways, I was very fortunate to be welcomed into a group of friends that had enough connections and experience in-country to build up this network and will always be thankful to those who welcomed me in with open arms. I gathered that not everyone there doing the same work I did was so lucky. But still, my experience of life in Saudi, as a single white American man, is that it really wasn't all that difficult. While I would never force it on anyone and probably wouldn't ask a wife who wasn't 100% on board to go or to raise a family there, I, for one, got along just fine.
I am happy that it's over though, if only because it means that Amy and I can start the next stage of our lives together, something we are both almost too excited about for words. I'd like to tell you to stay tuned for the blog, A Relford in Central America, but if I've learned anything from my first blog experience, it's that at this point, the beginning, the tendency is to make promises to readers that don't get kept. I do plan on at least starting a blog, though how much I post, only time will tell. :)
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
A Relford
I think the reasons are fairly plain to see. You start out so excited. Everything's new and different. The simplest everyday experiences are instantly noteworthy and as a foreigner in a strange land, nothing fails to warrant comment. But as the time passes, and you get more and more used to your surroundings, your daily life shifts from extraordinary to anything but. You stop looking at everything through the wide eyes of a foreigner. The blog posts stop writing themselves. You find yourself feeling almost burdened by the obligation to continue to post and successive posts seem more forced or like more and more of a stretch. As the frequency of your posts become less and less, you suddenly realize that you've gone a month without posting. After feeling like you've already disappointed your readers and like they've probably already given up on you anyway it's only too easy to stop altogether.
Excuses (or maybe explanations ;)) aside, I'd like to provide some punctuation to my blog.
My time in Saudi has come to a close. I've left a little sooner than I'd originally planned and a little sooner than the fulfillment of my contract would have required. The reason is that I preferred to have a solid month of travel time in the Middle East before Amy and I start our next teaching contract in Honduras (did I mention Amy and I took a contract in Honduras?) I'm currently in Palestine after having spent 9 days in Lebanon, 6 in Jordan, and 2 on the east coast of the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. The trip has been amazing and unbelievably educational to say the very least and I hope to put my thoughts together about my experiences--although I'll resist the temptation to make any promises about future posts.
As for Saudi, I'm extremely satisfied with and would even go so far as to say proud of my decision to go. As with anything in life, there is always something to be gained from experience and I can say unequivocally that I gained a lot from my time there. I accomplished most of my goals, especially after finally being able to travel in the region, and have left a little wiser and definitely not worse off financially.
I also don't want to make it sound like my time in Saudi was some sort of burden or equate it in any way to a prison sentence. In many ways my lifestyle and quality of life wasn't much different than it's been anywhere else that I've lived. I made some really good friends, friends whom I believe I'll be friends with for life. I drank homemade wine at the compound almost every weekend, participated in weekly basketball games and was part of a social network that had frequent get-togethers, parties, and engaged in some pretty regular tom-foolery. In many ways, I was very fortunate to be welcomed into a group of friends that had enough connections and experience in-country to build up this network and will always be thankful to those who welcomed me in with open arms. I gathered that not everyone there doing the same work I did was so lucky. But still, my experience of life in Saudi, as a single white American man, is that it really wasn't all that difficult. While I would never force it on anyone and probably wouldn't ask a wife who wasn't 100% on board to go or to raise a family there, I, for one, got along just fine.
I am happy that it's over though, if only because it means that Amy and I can start the next stage of our lives together, something we are both almost too excited about for words. I'd like to tell you to stay tuned for the blog, A Relford in Central America, but if I've learned anything from my first blog experience, it's that at this point, the beginning, the tendency is to make promises to readers that don't get kept. I do plan on at least starting a blog, though how much I post, only time will tell. :)
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
A Relford
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