Fleeing the Floods

The normal annual rainfall for Jeddah is 54 mm (2.1 inches). On January 26th, however, Jeddah received 114 mm (nearly 4.5 inches) over a four-hour period. This was in addition to the 45 mm we had received ten days earlier. (We even had a full-blown thunderstorm with booming thunder and blazing lightening that sent two kids scrambling into bed with us.) It began raining on Monday evening. Tuesday it rained a little more, so much, in fact, that the school sent out a message saying if you hadn’t sent your kids to school to go ahead and keep them home. Unfortunately for our kids we didn’t get this until they were already at school. Tuesday afternoon brought a lot of rain. It poured and poured, not unlike downpours we would experience in Ohio.

Dano was missing all of this as he was having meetings in Bahrain. Wednesday morning after a rainy night and collaborating with Dano, we decided to keep the kids home from school. It was only an hour after school started that we received the school's message that all children were being sent home due to the rain. I told the kids they’d had snow days in Ohio, but now they’d be able to say they had a rain day. Here are just a couple of pictures we took from a drive. I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish by scooping water out with a loader. Dano asked if this wasn't like trying to drain a lake with a spoon?
This is the top of a semi truck. It's hard to image just a couple of days prior to this picture the water was above the underpass. One of the faults of Jeddah is their drainage systems…they don’t exist. This was one of the problems with the flooding in 2009. We found out Friday evening that the Ministry of Education had canceled school for Saturday. The kids were thrilled to have another day off. By noon on Saturday we learned the Ministry had extended the decree for one-week closure. We also learned about small demonstrations happening in Jeddah. Dano was preparing for a trip to Turkey for meetings. With the kids being out of school for the week, people staging small protests, Cairo being in an uprising on the other side of the sea and Dano leaving us for the week, we decided it might be a good time to distance ourselves from Jeddah for a few days. By midnight Saturday we were headed to the airport to leave for Istanbul. We were very happy to have a bulk head seat with bassinet accommodations for Emily. She slept soundly for a good portion of the trip.
We stayed on the European side of Istanbul this time. This was the view of the Bosphorous as we walked each day to and from our little hotel.
I was so happy we had a day to take Dano around. Of all the times he has been to Istanbul, he’s never been to see some of the great sites. The kids and I were happy to serve as tour guides as the sites were somewhat fresh in our minds. We took him to the Blue Mosque and to the Hagia Sophia.
I think the inside of the Blue Mosque is breathtakingly beautiful. It's hard to comprehend all the hours of work it took to complete such a masterpiece of art that simply cannot be captured on camera.


This time I took the kids around Istanbul by myself. As Dano’s meetings began the next day and we had more sites to see, we grabbed a taxi from our hotel and headed out to visit the Basilica Cistern, an underground water reservoir built in the 6th century. We thought it would be fun to have our pictures taken. (Dano and I had ours taken when I took him back to the Cistern.)
It’s amazing to think about how much water this cistern held. It is braced by 336 marble columns neatly arranged in rows. There are also two Medusa heads in the cistern. No one knows for sure why they’re there or where they came from. Some speculation says they were put there to release any evil spirits from the cistern.
The next day we took a cab to the beautiful Dolmabahce Palace. It was built along the European Bosphorus shore during the 19th century and took thirteen years to complete. (Can you tell we were a little chilly that day?)
It remains well-guarded. However, this one was purely for photos. You can't see the large dagger he is holding behind his back. Impressive.
It remains one of the most exquisite palaces in the world.
It is so large it requires a guided tour. Unfortunately they do not allow any photography inside the palace. From the 285 rooms to the 68 bathrooms to the crystal staircase to the 4.5 tonne crystal chandelier, with all the other crystal and gold everywhere it truly is an exquisite palace outfitted for royalty. It is said that 40 tonnes of silver and 14 tonnes of gold were used for the decoration of the palace. The rulers of the Ottoman Empire lived there (intermittently) instead of the Topkapi Palace (which we visited and wrote about in September last year) until the last Ottoman Sultan. Then the first leader of modern-day Turkey, Mustafa Ataturk, resided there until his death on November 10, 1938. All clocks were stopped at 9:05 a.m., the time of his death. I think all of the children thoroughly enjoyed the palace and were each able to share several things they liked about it with Dano (since he didn’t get to see this with us).

We successfully purchased jetons (tokens) for the train and got us on the correct train headed back across Istanbul toward our hotel. We managed to stop at a McDonald’s for a treat of a lunch where we had a miserable bathroom incident involving a woman yelling at Kennedy in Turkish and banging on the door because Abby had locked herself in a stall (the only available stall), needed help and there was no toilet paper. I, on the other hand, was dealing with a terrible diaper disaster. Is there a subset of Murphy’s laws that says diaper blowouts will only happen when and where it is the very least convenient? My moment of accomplishment had quickly been squelched and now I just wanted to leave with whatever shred of dignity I had left. I calmed Kennedy down (who also couldn’t wait to vacate Mickey D’s), dealt with a sobbing three-year-old who was thirsty but didn’t want to drink her water because she had put a French fry in it, quickly redressed Emily, tossed her absolutely disgusting diaper in the trash, whispered a sincere apology to whomever had to empty that trash, and rushed out to catch the train back toward our hotel.

We were able to take Dano to visit the Grand Bazaar, a famous maze of souqs in Istanbul.
At one of the souqs we found a great chess set for Ethan from a very nice man named Mustafa.
As we continued strolling through the paths of the Bazaar we were stopped by an Australian man and his daughter who talked to us for a few minutes before asking us if we were Mormons. It turns out they were as well. Mormons are everywhere!
It was fun to chat with them for a few minutes and then finish our Grand Bazaar experience.

Luckily for us, with Dano’s meetings come his friends. We were so fortunate to be able to see Mr. Griffin (not for long enough...even Erin thought so!)
and to get to spend an evening with Mr. Fischer. In Abby’s opinion, he could come back every week (although she’s sorry for pinching his cheeks).
We ate at a great restaurant with a “back door” exit which took us down through the ruins of one of the ancient castles of Istanbul.

We have decided that we really like Istanbul and all the history that comes along with it. It’s just amazing to walk through the streets and think we are walking where people have been walking for thousands of years and trying to imagine what life was like. I have also decided I am becoming more confident at navigating these great cities with children. Thank goodness I speak the universal language of English…thank goodness English is the universal language.