Welcome to the Kingdom

The Doha airport is huge, and inside is like a giant shopping mall. You have to walk through a gauntlet of duty free perfume shops to get to the gates. I felt like they should have issued us all gas masks and taught us how to duck and roll to escape the zealous salespeople rushing to spray us with the scent of the month. It was probably 30 minutes or so before I could breath without being overwhelmed by the combination of perfumes lingering on my clothes. 

Before I settled down to wait for four hours at the gate, I made my way to the bathroom. I sat down, did my business, and then, looked around for the TP. I realize that I did this in the wrong order, and that you should always look for toilet paper before you sit down, but sometimes you just don't think. In this case, it wouldn't have helped anyway because there is no TP anywhere here. All bathrooms come equipped with a tiny shower head you can use to clean yourself right over the toilet. Having used bidets before, I was excited. I think they get you cleaner than TP and as a bonus, they are better for the environment. So I grabbed the shower head, positioned it, and gave it a good squeeze. It was a good thing I was sitting down, because I was not prepared for the sheer force of the water pressure coming out of this tiny little shower head. Gradually, I figured out you can adjust the water pressure, by adjusting how hard you squeeze, but I still think they should come with a warning. I wasn't exactly prepared for a self enema. 

I also wasn't prepared for what happened next. Noticing a dark bump on my knee, and thinking it was a scab from hasty shaving, I went to pick it. I know you should never pick at your scabs, but it's a compulsion. This time, I'm glad I did. It wasn't a scab. It was a tick. A tick I must have picked up 2 days before at my farewell bonfire, and carried with me 6,609 miles. Luckily, I had tweezers in the toiletry kit of my carry-on, although, a good blast from the bidet might have just as easily done the trick. Tick removed and flushed, I returned somewhat unsettled to wait for my final flight.

The best thing about the Doha airport is free Internet. A PlayStation 4 free gaming room might be a close second for some, but I was content with Internet and more people watching. The ratios were suddenly reversed. Boarding the plane in Chicago I had seen a few people wearing thobes (men's robes) and abayas (women's robes) but mostly people had on western dress. Here, I saw a few westerners, and some Arabs wearing western clothes, but for the most part everyone was covered. Two or three flights left from my gate before my own flight and I watched families line up for Dubai, or Bahrain, and disappear down a staircase to the shuttle buses that take you on a half hour ride to your plane parked on the runway. Aside from the clothing, it all seemed fairly normal. 

Finally, they called the flight to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I began gathering up my things, and stood to get in line. When I looked up, I was shocked. There was not a single woman in the whole line. It was all men. A long, long, line, of men. To buy time, and because I suddenly felt I needed to, I went to the bathroom. I'm not sure what I thought would happen when I came out, but I guess I hoped the line would be shorter, or that the women were just slower to stand up and get in line. But nope, nothing had changed, though the line was slightly shorter. I stood at the back of the line, and tried to avoid the stares of the men in front of me. I wish I had decided to put my make-shift abaya on in the bathroom, but I figured I would wait and put it on on the plane before we landed. (I read in a book once that Saudi women often changed in the bathrooms just before landing when flying home from abroad, and figured that was the way it was done). I shouldn't have worried though, a man stepped in front of me to join the line as if I wasn't there, so I guess he didn't notice my clothing, or me, anyway. I finally got aggressive after the second guy cut in. The thing is, you can't leave any personal space, or they think you aren't actually in line. I was awkwardly close to the man in front of me, counting the hairs on his neck, which were about eye level to me, when one of the flight attendants pulled me from the line. He asked to see my ticket and looked surprised that it was the right flight number. He sent me to the front of the line, and downstairs to wait for the bus where I joined the five other women who would be with me on this 400 seat plane. Three were Saudi women, dressed in black abayas with head scarves to match. The other two were from the Philippines, most likely coming to work as house maids or nurses. Like me, they were dressed in western clothing, and I was thankful to not be the only one.

Warning: Death for Drug Trafficker

My seat was in the very back row next to the toilet and a man who had clearly managed to avoid the perfume onslaught. Luckily, the flight was just under an hour long. After take-off the flight attendants handed out landing cards to everyone. The first thing I saw was was the red letter warning. Welcome to the Kingdom....

About 15 minutes before landing, I gathered my make-shift abaya, (Thank you $20 Kohls long black dress and my black sweater) and changed in the bathroom. I forgot to bring my head scarf in with me, so I threw it on blind when I got back to my seat. I'm sure it looked all askew. When the man next to me woke up after we landed, he looked surprised. When we boarded, I was a blue-jean wearing American. Now I was a blue-eyed abaya wearing woman. I noticed that the Saudi women I had boarded with had changed too, adding a veil to their hijabs to cover everything but their eyes.

I was nervous going through immigration, I didn't do anything wrong, and I had all the correct visas and entry permits, but it didn't stop me from worrying.  I had  my fingerprints scanned and when I nervously attempted a smile when they took my photo, the immigration officer laughed.  I'm not sure if it was because no one usually smiles, or if it was because he had just read a hilarious text on one of the two cell phones he was constantly checking through the whole process.  Just like that, I was done.  I gathered my bags loaded them on a cart, and headed out of the airport.  A man holding a sign for the company who hired me was waiting for me at the exit, and I felt so relieved. He pointed to my name and I said yes, that's me.  I asked him if I could first change some money before we left the airport, and I quickly realized that he spoke no English, and I had not gotten passed the alphabet in my attempts to learn Arabic.  Luckily, money talks, so he knew what I wanted and led me to the Western Union.  He had a friend with him, and instructed the man to wait with me outside while he brought the car around.  It was 1:45 in the morning and dark, but I was sweating under my long dark clothes and heavy headscarf.  Once again, I saw only men outside, lined up, waiting for taxis, or maybe taxi drivers themselves.  All were wearing white thobes, and the distinct checkered red and white cloth over their heads.  It was like being in a field of bobbing picnic blankets, fluttering from time to time in a slight breeze or the passing of a car.  I don't understand how those things stay on.  They seem to be held down with just two loose loops of black rope.  It isn't tight on the head at all, just resting like a crown on the top of the head.  I wonder how heavy it is?

Finally, the man came around with the van, and we loaded my bags.  I sat in the back, and tried to see out of the windows, but they had been tinted so no one could see in, with the added bonus that it was very hard to see out.  He drove recklessly fast, but there was almost no traffic. At one point he said something and pointed out the window.  I looked and could just make out an archway in a long fence with the words in English below the beautifully scripted Arabic: 

جامعة الأميرة نورة بنت عبد الرحمن

 Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman University.  We drove for another 10 or 15 minutes alongside this walled fence before it finally ended in another entrance to the University. For the first time, I realized just how large the University where I would be working really was. 

After another 30 minutes or so we arrived.  I wasn't sure where we were arriving to.  By this time it was almost 2:30 in the morning, so I doubted we would be going to the office, but It didn't look much like a hotel either.  There was a guard out front, and the two men in the van helped me bring my stuff into the hotel, then promptly left.  I stared at the man at the reception desk, who was juggling two phones.  Finally, he put one down, and I was relieved to see that he spoke some English.  He checked me in, then helped me put my bag into a tiny elevator.  He indicated that I should squeeze in too.  He pushed a few buttons, closed the door, and sent me up alone.  He was waiting for me at the top and led me to my room.  It was actually two rooms, a bedroom and then a living room area with a TV and a little fridge, stove top and microwave.  He asked me if I needed anything else, and suddenly, I felt very tired.  I realized I had no idea what to do when I woke up in the morning.  I asked the man, and he said he would call them and have them send a driver to pick me up at 9am.  I asked about Internet, so I could also send them an email, and luckily, there was wifi, which he helped me sign into.  I thanked him, locked the door behind him, took off my headscarf and abaya, and took a deep breath.  I had finally arrived.