Shopping

I needed food for the next three or four days while I waited for the train to Dammam.  So I made my first venture out into the real Saudi Arabia.  Every night,  a shuttle comes to pick up any teachers who want to go shopping.  Each night, the destination is a different mall.  This is good because I need both food, and also a real abaya, and a plug for my tablet, since the plug I had stopped working (my fault, I didn't use a proper converter.)  I figured I would be able to find all of these things easily at a mall.  So I put on the abaya, and headed to the lobby at 7:15 to wait for the 7:30 shuttle.  There was no one else around and no sign of the bus, so I sat down in the lobby and started to read.  The man at the receptionist looked at me, and the two men who had been watching soccer on TV, now watched me.  I take it that women generally did not just wait around in the lobby.  Time passes, and I started to wonder if I had read the shuttle wrong.  Finally another woman came down and I could tell she was waiting on the bus because she checked the schedule too.  When a third woman appeared, the two of them headed for the bus and I followed them.  I wasn't sure if they were Saudi or other foreign teachers. When all you can see is a person's eyes, it's kind of hard to tell.  In some ways, it's a great equalizer.

As we got on, I heard one of them say something in a distinctly British accent and I took the opportunity to introduce myself.  For the entire forty-five minute ride to the mall, I peppered them with questions about Saudi Arabia, their students, and life here in general.  Both girls were born and raised in Britain and were muslims. One's parents were from Pakistan, and the other was a mix, with a Pakistani father and Indian mother. They both spoke some Arabic and also Urdu.  They had been here for eight months.  One of the girls couldn't wait to leave.  The other hadn't decided if she would renew her contract or not, but both encouraged me to keep and open mind and not let other people's negativity influence my opinions.  They then immediately began to pour out their negative opinions.  The students were spoiled brats.  They were paid to attend classes, some sort of government program to encourage women's education, paid for with oil money. They weren't interested in learning English, spent the whole class on their cell phones, and had no respect for authority other than that of their own parents, whom they respected very much.  Most of the girls felt the classes were a complete waste of time.  "We are only going to get married anyway, and then what's the point?"  If the teachers were strict or demanded too much of them, the students complained and the administration always took the part of the students, particularly the students of influential parents.  Both teachers felt like babysitters of middle school students, not university teachers. 

We arrived at the mall, and anxious to not be alone on my first real encounter of public life, I asked if I could tag along and shop with them.  We made our way through the mall, which looked no different than a standard American mall, aside from the fact that everyone in it was either wearing black robes, or white ones, depending on their sex.  As we walked, shops began closing down their doors and shutting down.  I was surprised.  Why would they schedule a bus to take us shopping as the mall was closing?  I asked my new friends and they said, oh yes, the evening prayer.  Many of the shops will close now for 20-40 minutes for prayer, but they will re-open.  They were making a bee-line for the giant grocery/department store that reminded my of an upscale Walmart.  The girls made their way through housewares, picking out glasses and looking at knickknacks.  "There is literally nothing to do here but shop." One of my new friends told me.  "Women stay home all day, and the only place that's really acceptable for them to be in public, is shopping.  So they shop."  Indeed, the store was crowded with women, all just browsing leisurely, attracted by shiney gilded diamond covered things. Indeed, it seemed like they covered everything they could with diamonds or gold.  We passed the small electronics corner, and I stopped to find a new plug.  I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, but I found something that seemed like it might work.  I flagged down a worker to have a closer look at the plug, which was locked behind a glass display case.  He shook his head and explained he didn't have a key.  I would have to wait for his Saudi boss to return from prayer.  This man was Filipino and as I looked around I noticed almost all of the shops employed non-native workers.  I mentioned this to one of the girls who said, "Oh yes, Saudi's feel it is beneath them to work retail.  They would rather be unemployed and take money from the king."

We made our way to the grocery section of the store where the aisles were at least 10 feet, maybe 12 feet high.  Food was stacked even on the highest shelves, and I wondered what the point of having products no one could reach could be.  I imagined a store full of people on stilts, then just as quickly, imagined the religious police arresting the women for having exposed themselves to me from below.  How quickly the paranoia and obsession with propriety is sinking in, it's even invading my crazy day dreams.  You could find everything in this store, including American brand names.  I passed a freezer shelf full of Blue Bell ice-cream from Texas, only recently available in Virginia.  I pointed out my surprise to one of my new friends who seemed unimpressed.  "You can get anything here.  People have money and nothing to do but spend it.  So if you want it, you can buy it.  You will just probably pay three times as much to cover the import costs."  

A bell sounded somewhere and one of the girls told me it meant that prayer was over, and that I could probably go back and get my plug.  Sure enough, the man had returned and he got the plug out for me.  I wanted to add it to my basket of food items, but he wouldn't let me and walked me up to the register himself.  I was a little surprised at the added security, since the plug was only worth about $15.  He sat the plug down on the register, and told the cashier to help me, even though there were at least three women waiting to cash out ahead of me.  I was forgetting that lines are meaningless here.  He bagged my plug, and the few grocery items for me.  He told me the price, and I handed over the cash, and then he stuck a small pack of gum into my sack and gave me a little nod.  I hadn't asked for gum, at least I didn't think I had.   Maybe I had accidently flashed the secret sign for gum.  Or maybe, my breath was just that bad.  Confused, I rushed away to find my new friends and see if they could explain.  "Oh, that's just the rounding." one told me, "There are no coins here, so they just round up, and if it's more than 30 cents, they give you a little something to make up for the difference."  A nice gesture, I thought.  They had rounding in New Zealand too, but I never got any free gum out of it.

Grocery shopping over, we now had about an hour left before the bus returned.  The girls led me to store after store of women's clothing.  Most seemed geared toward teenagers, and were quite revealing. I asked if there were any abaya shops here.  Both girls shook their heads.  "Not here," they said.  "It seems so strange to me that there would be such a market for Fashionable clothing when no one will ever see it?  I mean, wouldn't you just wear the most comfortable thing you could under your abaya all the time?"  Both girls laughed at my naivete. " Just wait until you get on campus.  Since there are no men allowed, you can take off the abaya.  The girls come through the gates like black ghosts, but the minute they pass through the security guards (male) they throw their abayas in their bags and wear the most outrageous things. You will feel like you are in a seedy club downtown at midnight, I swear."  "It's actually a huge problem," said the other girl, "there's always a big announcement if a male is coming on campus and the girls get all panicked.  Not at our school, but at one nearby, a girl actually died recently because she needed medical attention and they wouldn't let the male paramedics through because not all the girls were covered yet.  By the time they let them in, it was too late."  I didn't know what to say.  We were all quite for a while.  Then we headed into a clothing store with a buy one get one free sale and the girls were off again, skimming the racks, for who knows what.  

The shorter of the two held a shirt up against her abaya in front of a mirror.  "I never liked shopping." she told me.  "I used to hate it.  But now look at me.  There just isn't anything else to do.  Oh, we go out now and again.  Sometimes we will go to someone's house, and there will be mixed company, mostly foreigners.  Sometimes we drink even.  But not often.  You can eat in a restaurant, and I do, with guys that are my friends that I have known for a while here.  But you have to pretend you are married.  You have to have your story straight ahead of time.  When you got married, how long it's been....  You just have to be prepared."  I had read that sometimes the mutaween (religious police) will stop couples in public and ask to see their marriage licenses.  I asked, "Weren't you worried they would ask to see your marriage license?"  "No one has ever asked me." she said.  We headed into a ladies only section that sold jewelry, and underwear.   I had noticed that most women here wore a lot of bracelets.  "It's the only thing you can see." pointed out one of the girls.  "It's also expensive." I pointed out.  "Oh that doesn't matter," said the other.  "They are all rich.  It's the oil.  Everyone gets a piece of it. Why do you think they pay us so well?"  I watched all the women lifting things off racks, holding up scarfs and bangles.  "They are really quite lucky, I said, "to have all of this wealth." "Oh yeah," said the short one.  "It's the life of luxury.  In a prison."

The taller one paid for her final purchases, and I watched as three separate security tags were removed from one item.  "Isn't that a bit obsessive given that the punishment for stealing is losing a hand?" I asked when we were out of earshot of the clerk.  "It's paranoia.  They are all paranoid. Everyone watches everyone else with such suspicion.  Nothing is ever innocent.  You have to be careful even not to smile, or someone might be watching and take it the wrong way.  It shows in the way they are so protective of their women, sometimes it's sweet, but mostly it's suffocating."  While we waited for the bus, I watched a little girl and her brother dragging along helium filled character balloons of Dora the explorer and Spongebob.  She looked so happy, and for now, she could do everything her brother could do.  I wondered what it was like growing up here. I wondered at what age she would put on an abaya, and if it was a moment of excitement, like graduation, or getting the keys to your first car, or if it was sad, like giving away your childhood toys.  When they wear it for the first time, do they feel their world opening up to the possibilities of adulthood? or closing in around them? 

I'm not sure yet how I feel about my own abaya.  For one thing, I haven't even got a real one yet.  But it does make me feel safer somehow.  It's like a costume, dressing for the part.  I'm a stranger here, but wearing it, I blend in somewhat.  It's like a black badge of honor.  In it, my virtue must be guarded and protected by Saudi Men.  Though it is also a symbol of my weakness as a woman and my dependence on men, for now, that's okay with me.  Because I do feel helpless.  I do feel dependant.  I'm sure my feelings will change.  Probably daily.  But for now, it feels more like a friend than an enemy.