Last night, one of the other teachers invited me and some of the other teachers to go with her and her Saudi friends to the beach. I was a little confused at first, since we weren't leaving until 7 pm, and the sun would clearly be down by then, but then I remembered that going to the beach when the sun was up, and it was 110 degrees, wouldn't be much fun either.
It's funny how exciting little things like this can be. I was so happy to be asked to come, and then all day I was looking forward to it. As the night wore on, I was more and more excited. I felt like a kid counting down the days to his birthday, only it was hours that were dragging by for me, not days. I was excited because I wanted to see the Persian Gulf (or the Arabian Gulf depending on who you talk to) and I wanted to feel like a welcomed part of this group of teachers, and I wanted to meet real Saudi's who weren't my students or coworkers.
My biggest dilemma as I was whiling away the hours at home was deciding what to wear. I wasn't sure how to dress. One of the teachers had told me it was the Aramco beach, so when we got there, I wouldn't have to wear my abaya. But what to wear under the abaya? I didn't put on my swimming suit because I doubted that we would be swimming at night. But I knew her friend that was taking us to the beach was a man (because he was going to be driving) and so I didn't know what was appropriate. I wanted to wear shorts so I could run through the sand, and at least dip my feet in the water, but I figured that was definitely inappropriate. I asked the girl who had invited me what I should wear. Oh just a nice little skirt or dress. I looked in my closet at my skirt options. All of them are floor length. None of them are "beach wear". I finally decided to just wear the same skirt I had worn to work that day. A linen one with buttons along the front. It was about 2 inches shorter than any of the other skirts, and could easily be hiked up to walk in the water. I wanted to change into a t-shirt to be more relaxed, but t-shirts don't really go with skirts, so I left the shirt I had had on at work on too. Funny, after hours of deliberation, I just wore what I had on all along.
When she finally knocked on my door to let me know we were ready to leave, I was shocked and embarrassed by what the other three girls were wearing. One of them had on a thin strapped sun dress. To be fair, she wore it as a skirt to work too, but always had a shirt on over the top of it that made decent. The other girl had a similar sun dress that came down only to just above her knees. I know you are all thinking, knee length, that's quite normal and appropriate for the beach. But after a month of being here and seeing no flesh, it was quite scandalous. The other girl had on a tube top, and M.C. hammer pants. Thankfully, because she has long beautiful full curly hair, it hid the fact that the top was strapless. I felt ridiculously conservative and was glad when we suited up and put on our abayas for the drive to the beach.
He had a really nice car that was clearly new, and had a lot of cool features that seemed specifically designed for hot climates. Most people have windows that roll up and down electronically. This guy, he had that, plus, tinted window shades that rolled up and down, even on the back window. At first I thought it was a great idea just for blocking the sun on hot days, but I realized it's also important to have if you plan on driving women around whom you aren't related too. He had a GPS smart phone connected computer thing in the dash of his car, which seemed useful, but could also be embarrassing if you weren't careful since it automatically displayed any text messages and "What's app" feeds (the social media of choice here) along with automatically patching any phone calls through the car speakers. Luckily, there were no embarrassing phone calls, and even better, he was a careful slow driver. A nice change from the constant near misses on our daily commutes. Of course, a lot of it could have to do with the lack of traffic this time of night.
We finally arrived at the beach, and it was lined with permanent picnic tables in little shaded and walled sections. There were bathrooms, and showers for your feet and a huge playground. Outside of these lighted areas, it was dark. We took off our abayas, but saw only other Saudi's and only a few other women who all remained covered. I felt uncomfortable at first, so one of the girls and I walked away out on the sand to get away from the staring eyes and dip our feet in the water and we were surprised to find that there was no surf. It was like wading on the shore of a lake. Apparently, there are waves on windier days, but today it was placid and warm as bath water. We went out quite a ways from shore, but the water never came past my calves. Eventually we turned back because we didn't want to reach a sudden drop off point and and get soaked, or get so far out that we couldn't see our friends
When we got back to our picnic spot a few other Saudi friends had arrived. They brought plates of nuts arranged in fancy shapes, croissants stuffed with cheese and meet and spices, tea and coffee (in proper tea kettles) a tray of sweets, and a dozen bottles of water. One of the guys was setting up the most elaborate hookah pipe I had ever seen. Another was spreading a really nice rug to lay on out over the sand, and there were even square pillow armrests. In a matter of minutes, the concrete communist looking picnic block was suddenly transformed into a scene from Arabian nights. The guys were all geologists from Saudi Aramco who had studied in London. They seemed really nice, and all of them were very polite and courteous. I wanted to ask them a million questions about growing up in Saudi, about what it was like for their sisters and mothers, about how it had changed in recent years, about what they thought about the future of the country... Instead, we talked about safe things. We discussed our preferences of coffee or tea. We talked about what movies were playing in Bahrain at the moment and if any of them were any good (there are no public movie theaters in Saudi). We learned a few things about aquifers and geological formations. We talked about awful tricks siblings play on each other. We talked about everything but the things I'm sure we all wanted to know about each other. Culture, politics, and religion were the topics no one was ready to broach, but everyone was thinking about.
When we ran out of safe things to say, we ran to the playground and swung on the swings, and went down the slides, and did the monkey bars and acted like children. It felt freeing to be out without an abaya or hijab, and even though climbing on a playground isn't the easiest thing in a floor length skirt, it was great to be a kid again and forget for a minute where you were and all the things you couldn't do. One of the girls had brought some bad-mitten rackets and shuttlecocks, so we did our best to keep a volley going while a pair of Saudi children watched, confused by these grown ups acting like children on their playground.
Too soon it was past eleven, and we all had to work the next day. We packed up all the food and the rugs, and put our abayas back on. The ride home seemed much quicker than the ride there, and I'm not sure if it was the lack of traffic, or that time was moving more quickly now that there wasn't anything exciting to look forward to. It was a wonderful night, and exactly what I needed. I hope we will visit the beach again soon, and I hope someday I will get to know a Saudi well enough to ask them about the all the things we are not supposed to talk about.
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