The company is kind enough to provide us with 5 local shopping trips every week. On Monday and Tuesday, we go to a local grocery store about 10-15 minutes drive from our house. The bus leaves at 4:30 from our apartments, drops you at the store, then leaves to head back to the apartments at 5:30, so you get about 40 minutes to shop, which is enough time provided no prayer times fall within that window of time, and that there are no long lines to check out. On Thursday they take us to a local mall for three hours later in the evening, from 5:30 to 9:30. Luckily there is a grocery store next door to the mall. On Friday they drop us off at a grocery store on the kornich, so you can buy food or walk along the water or enjoy some of the many restaurants, but you better be willing to do it for four hours. On Saturday they take us to a big mall for another three hours adventure. I have never been a shopper. I really hate malls. Sadly though, when you buy fresh fruit and vegetables, you can't really buy in bulk, or the stuff will go bad. So, as much as I hate shopping, it seems as though I almost always found myself on one, sometimes two shopping trips each week. Or at least, I was until I found out there was a tiny corner shop that sells fruit and veg about two blocks away from our apartment.
Just getting there is an adventure. What does every adventure need? Companions. Particularly in our neighborhood, where it isn't advisable to go anywhere alone. So the first step is convincing one or more of the girls that what they really want to do with their time when they get home from work is to put their abaya back on, go outside in the 109 degree heat, and walk two blocks to buy bananas with you. Once that mission is accomplished, you start the journey to the store, which involves pretending to be oblivious to all the guys in the cars who pass by honking or shouting things at you as they drive by you as slow as humanly possible. I can only assume they are taking the opportunity to stare at the abundant folds of your abaya, since it is impossible to discern any kind of body shape. Some particularly aggressive ones have been known to stop and reverse once they have already passed you, or drive around the block for another go at you. Usually, all they do is shout obscenities, but occasionally they will also throw a waded up piece of paper at you, which they consider flirting. The papers contain their phone number, and is your invitation to the underground world of internet/mobile phone courtship in Saudi.
If you manage to survive the walk having received less than two comments, or "slow drive by's" it's considered a small victory. But it isn't a success until you actually arrive at the shop and find it open. The shop keeps no definitive hours, so it's kind of a crap shoot if they will be open or not. I have seen the lights on sometimes when driving past after 11pm, and sometimes it is locked up tight at three in the afternoon, but just as often, it is the exact opposite. Even when you are lucky enough to find it open, there is still a chance that today, he will not have the item you need. The shop is literally on the corner, and when the store is open, the actual door is wide open, with a sheet of plastic hanging down in front to keep in the AC. Two of the walls have supermarket style refrigerators with the fruit and vegetables pre-packaged in convenient 5 riyal packages (a little under $2). Sometimes there is lettuce, sometimes only oranges and carrots. Usually there are tomatoes and potatoes, and on a good day he has mangoes and pomegranates as well. But you just never know what you are going to get.
The man who owns the store is a perfect caricature of a Saudi man. He wears the white thobe and the red and white checkered picnic blanket on his head. He looks to be in his late 50s, and he absolutely loves us. I have no idea why, but from the first moment we showed up in the shop, he became our "uncle". He said a few words in English repeatedly, such as "America" and "you" and then launched into a long but presumably beautiful speech in Arabic about how welcome we were. He insisted on giving us a watermelon for free, and demanded that we come back often. He also asked me about a large black woman.... at least, I think that is what he was saying...
Since then we have come back often. Each time, he greets us enthusiastically, helps us pick out the best produce, insists we take more than we need, and then charges us almost nothing for it all. The first few times this happened, I didn't realize how much of a deal we were getting. I was still trying to figure out home much things cost, and just trusted him as a business owner to tell me how much to pay. I few trips to the real supermarket later, I started to realize that I had been paying him less than half of what the food was worth.
On our next visit, I didn't even ask him what it all cost, I just gave him 30 riyals to try to make up for some of the other visits. He took it without looking at it (I folded it up inside a 1 riyal note) and figured I had made up for it, but he chased after me and insisted I take a big package of dates that was probably worth 15-20 riyals. So much for that.
The following visit was the last day of Ramadan. He scolded us for having not been to see him for a few weeks and we protested that it was Ramadan and we didn't know if he was open (and to be fair, we had tried to come before but it was closed). I asked him to pick me out a good watermelon and decided to grab a bag of potatoes (which I later regretted, I forgot I was going to be carrying them for two blocks). The other two girls picked out their various purchases and when we were ready to pay, he invited (we think) to join him for Eid the next day. Eid feast is the first day after Ramadan, and everyone wakes up early to pray and then eat a huge meal with their family. They then spend the rest of the day going from house to house visiting relatives and friends. He kept saying something about his shop and his phone and his wife and tomorrow, but that was about all I got. The other girls clarified that he was inviting us to his house to meet his wife tomorrow. We thanked him and tried to pay him and this time he refused to take any money at all. After all, this was Ramadan, and you get double points for good deeds, but only one more day! I decided to "accidentally" drop some money on his chair by the door as we left. One good deed deserves another, right?
The next day I tried to rally the troupes. I was kind of excited to meet our "uncles" wife and see there home, and no doubt eat a lot of dates and Arabic coffee. There were two problems. One, we had no idea what time he wanted us to come, and two, neither of the girls wanted to go with me. I couldn't believe that they weren't as excited about it as I was. One said she felt it was kind of creepy, although, I didn't feel that way because he wanted us to sit with his wife and not with him... so I felt it was a genuine offer of kindness, and of course, indoctrination, but still a genuine offer. The other just didn't feel up to the walk, or sitting for who knows how long without understanding anything he or she said to us. I guess they had fairly valid reasons. I thought about going alone, but the thought of facing all the harassing guys alone, plus the fact that I had no idea what time to go, and if the man would even be at his shop on such a holiday helped me decide that it was better to stay in.
I was anxious to go back to his shop because I didn't know how to explain why we hadn't accepted his invitation. The first time we went back after Eid, a younger guy, possible a son or nephew was managing the shop. He was much more professional than his father and didn't try to talk to us or give us anything for free. In fact, he overcharged us. I didn't mind, I feel like it makes up for all the things his dad or uncle keeps giving us for free. The second time though, he was there. I smiled a lot and said I was very sorry, but that was all I could really manage with my fledgling Arabic. After an initial mild berating, he seemed not to mind and launched into a speech that based on hand gestures could have had to do with either something really small or really expensive... a lot of something else, three of another thing, and also the characters Mary and Joseph. He threw in a few words about Syria and Iraq while he was at it. I tried to slowly make my way to the door, but he was very into his story now, which seemed to include a midget and something to do with his shoulders. Finally the other girl I was with, exaggeratedly and suddenly noticed the time. We tried to hand him some money, but he wouldn't take it, and told me not to leave it on the chair like last time. He seemed more upset about that then us not coming to meet his wife. We thanked him again and left the store loaded with lemons and tomatoes and zucchini.
I keep thinking this guy will be perfect for practicing my Arabic with, but then I remember he would probably never let me get a word in edgewise. Too bad really. I was thinking I could help repay him with English lessons. Either way, these trips are shorter (although the last one not so much) than the shopping trips and far more entertaining. I can't wait until I'm out of cucumbers and carrots so I can go back. I'm looking forward to trying to figure out what happened to the midget and the three small things.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Sunday, July 27, 2014
How the Other Half Lives
This weekend we were invited to visit the Oasis compound. Compounds are like gated communities for expats. And by gated, I mean, gated, walled, barbed wired, armed guarded communities. You might say that is being a little paranoid, but this particular compound was attacked by terrorists in 2004 who killed about 27 people. Since then they have added an extra layer of walls with electrified fences and a ton of other safety measures including face recognition software and big brother cameras everywhere.
So we got picked up from our regular Friday night shopping trip bus stop at the supermarket by a couple of American guys who are here working on contracts and staying in the villas on the compound. We drove through three separate gate checks before we were officially on the compound, but even after the first gate, I could feel the difference. There was so much greenery everywhere for one thing. The other is the architecture of the apartments and "villas" looked like some thought had actually gone into planning the place. The streets were laid out in typical suburban style with date palms lining the sidewalks. We parked right in front of the villa they shared between five guys. We walked into the entryway, which was the size of two of my bathrooms, and then into a living room dining room that was bigger than my whole apartment. there was a second living room, just for the TV, a kitchen (with a dishwasher!) and then a completely separate laundry room that was bigger than my kitchen/living room. There was even a room just for the maid with it's own private bathroom! (They didn't actually have a live in maid, but they could have...) There was also a back yard porch area with a grill and lawn chairs and everything, even though at the moment it is too hot, even at midnight to hang out out there.
Gemma and I were stunned. We probably looked like idiots standing there with our jaws hanging open. They all just sat back and watched us like we were crazy while we oohed and ahhed over the simplest things, like a toaster and coffee maker, an oven, the fact that there was more than one electrical outlet in the kitchen, and that they had real chairs instead of stools, the fact that the ceilings were a good 10 maybe even 15 feet high, all the ways this place was just superior in every way to where we were staying. Then they dropped the bombshell. This was just the first floor and there were two more stories of this paradise. It took us over a half an hour to get the whole grand tour of the place, it was that big. One guy had a hallway of closets longer than my bedroom and living room combined leading up to his bathroom. Another guy had 2 TVs, and all of them had their own bathroom (with bathtubs!). It was all so overwhelming. I felt like we had been dropped right into upper middle class America.
And just to solidify the impression, we were offered a glass of wine. This may not seem like much, but you have to remember that Saudi is an alcohol free country. So to give us this glass of wine, grape juice, sugar and yeast had to sit around for three months in water jugs, then be bottled and sealed up for another little while before it made it into our mouths. They called it "Shower Wine" because they used the maid's spare bathroom shower to store all of the water jugs while they were brewing the wine. The wine was impressively good for having been made in a shower. With an actual fancy wine glass in hand, we had now become fully immersed in little America.
And Gemma and I would have been more than content with just that, but wait, there's more. This compound has not one, not two, but three swimming pools. Of course, we had to go swimming, so the boys took us over to the fitness area, which was less than five minutes away, and the best part was, we didn't have to wear our Abayas! We passed through a really long fancy looking dining area and then down some stairs to peek into an indoor tennis court. Actually, two indoor tennis courts next to each other. Then we went down another flight of stairs to an ice-skating rink. Can you believe it? In Saudi, an ice-skating rink? How much refrigeration equipment do you think it takes to keep ice frozen in year round temperatures of 85-120 degrees fahrenheit? There was also a whole gym with cardio equipment and weights and basically any exercise stuff you could think of. Finally, we went back up a level to the olympic size swimming pool. It was crazy. There was a diving board, and a ceiling that had to be three stories above us. Suspended from the ceiling were bunches of large fiberglass dolphins, usually in families of three. I counted at least 27 dolphins, but there may have been more.
And the best part of all of this? We were the only people there. There was absolutely no one around. I couldn't believe that more people weren't spending their Friday night swimming in a pool. If we lived in a place with a pool, I would be going swimming every day. No, twice a day. You would have to drag me out of the pool kicking and screaming. Nowhere on earth has swimming ever been more on my mind than here, where the heat and the dust constantly make you dream of water. We swam until 10pm, when the pool officially closes, but there was no one there to kick us out, so we could have gone on swimming forever if it weren't for the fact that we were hungry.
We went back to their villa, and they were kind enough to offer us the use of their showers to rinse the chlorine off. They even let us use their towels! I was happy to have a shower, but I was ecstatic when I discovered the water did not taste salty. For the first time in three months, I was bathing in fresh water! Just when I thought nothing could top that, they offered to wash and dry our bathing suits for us right then and there. They had a washing machine and a dryer! I can't believe how lucky they are! They can't believe how easily impressed we are.
So we made our way to the restaurant for a buffet. The restaurant was large, and because it was one of the only places in Dammam where women were allowed to smoke shisha, the place was full of women. It was oddly decorated in a weird combination of traditional Arabic designs and patterns crossed with neon colors and high tech tables lit with rotating colored lights. So when we sat down our table went from blue to green to red and back before we had even decided who would sit where. This was cool at first, but got to be somewhat distracting when we were trying to eat. There were a lot of Philipino and Indian staff waiting at every turn to be helpful. One woman followed me around the buffet, and at first I thought she was following me because I wasn't in thier face recognition software so she was worried i was a terrorist or something. I did my best to pretend I didn't notice she was there. I focused instead on the many kinds of meat and hummus and salad, and only after I had already filled my plate did I notice that they had a chef making fajitas and another chef making mongolian noodles. The woman who had been following noticed my plate was now full, and insisted on carrying it back to my table for me, while the chefs insisted on cooking me up some fajitas and noodles. I told them what I wanted added to each dish, and then they sent me away. I thought that was weird, but maybe I hadn't used the secret code word or something and chef-made dishes were only for people who actually lived here, but after a few minutes, someone dropped off both dishes to our table. Every time I started to get up to get something, water, more juice, knapkins, someone was right there to get it for us. They were so attentive, I was beginning to wonder if they would even go to the bathroom for me.
The food was just as good as the service, but unfortunately, because of Ramadan and all the fasting, I couldn't eat half of what I wanted to eat. I didn't even have room for dessert even after sitting around for an hour after we had all finished eating so we could smoke shisha. Normally when we smoke shisha, we get one or two shishas for the whole group. But here, shisha automatically comes with the buffet, so we each got our very own. And they had some unusual flavors too. I got watermelon, which was pretty great, but not quite as good as grape mint. Gemma got grape cherry, which I thought tasted like feet, but which one of the guys insisted tasted like lifesavers. By the time we had finished it was nearly 2am, and I didn't ever want to leave.
Lucky for us, the guys offered to let us stay the night on one of the four couches in their two living rooms. Sadly, those couches were ten times more comfortable than my own bed. I had probably the best night's sleep I have had since arriving on that couch. I'd like to attribute all of that to the softness of the cushions, but at least some of it was the shower wine, and the rest had to have been just knowing I was free of all the Saudi restraints so long as I was tucked up inside this amazing Oasis Compound.
In the morning, they offered to make us breakfast, and who would turn down eggs served up Mexican style by our very own in house chef? After breakfast, I asked reluctantly asked about getting a taxi, but the guys insisted we should stay since we hadn't experienced all there was to do on the compound. Even though it was the weekend, some of the guys still had to work, but a few of them were off, so they took us to the bowling alley. That's right, the bowling alley. We went to another part of the compound, which was also somehow only 5 minutes away (how is everything so centrally located to their villa?) The bowling alley was attached to a pool hall with six pool tables and an arcade area. The best part? It's all free! The arcade games don't take coins, the bowling is free, the pool is free, it's all free! I have no idea how they can afford to pay the indian man with a suit and bowtie who took our food orders and brought us drinks when we don't have to pay for any of the activities. I want to make this perfectly clear, it wasn't free because the guys were nice enough to pay for us (even thought they were nice enough to pay for dinner the night before). There was no need because the activities were all free. Completely free!
We played two games, and I lost both times, but I really didn't care. After we finished we decided to waste a few hours in the arcade. I played pinball and packman and some weird virtual sword slashing game that didn't really recognize arm movements. Then I played a basketball shooting game and I managed to get 61 points in 40 seconds! I beat Gemma, but was outdone by one of the guys who managed to get 85. Believe me, I spent at least a half hour trying to beat his score. My arms got tired before I came close. I've never been that into video games, but Gemma is, so while she played every game to her hearts content, I wondered next door to the indoor soccer field. I had only worn flipflops, but the soccer ball was made out of tennis ball material so we decided it would be okay to play barefoot, so we did some one on one for a while, and then slowly a few more of the guys joined us and we kicked the ball around for a while. I really hit my toe hard on something at some point, maybe the ball, maybe somebodies shin, I can't remember, but it has a nice purplish tint to it now. I also started to get a blister on the ball of my foot after a while, so I called it quits. Sadly, that little bit of swimming and soccer and shooting hoops was probably the most activity I've been able to do since arriving in Saudi!
It took a little longer to pull Gemma away from her games, but eventually we managed it. The crazy part was, with all this free stuff to do, we only ever saw one other person come in that whole time. What is going on? How can all these great features be free, and no one takes advantage of them. I can only suspect that most of the people are away at the moment for the Ramadan and Eid Holidays and it will be busy again in August.
Somehow we managed to waste that entire day. When we left the arcade I was surprised to find it was already dark. In fact, it was nearly ten o'clock. The guys offered to drop us off at the mall, our pick up point for the bus back to our crappy lives. Before we left though, they let us raid the maids bedroom, which they had been using to store all the stuff they didn't want. I got an awesome rice cooker, a can opener, some measuring cups and a tupperware container. Gemma got a pan, a cheese grater, an alarm clock and a vegetable steamer. We made out like bandits. The hardest thing was putting on our abayas to leave. They don't weigh that much, but when I slipped it onto my shoulders they felt instantly heavy. There is no way we can ever repay these guys for that beautiful escape from reality.
But as we drove back out of the three gates, and nearly died in several completely normal near misses in our drive back to the mall I started thinking about how bored the guys are living there in their expat bubble. I thought about how little they knew of life outside of the compound walls and beyond their office. For them, there is no amazing great escape from Saudi for a weekend. For them, it is all the time. So, there is nothing to look forward to but leaving. It got me thinking that I'm glad I live in such a crappy apartment. I'm glad I get to experience both worlds, so that I can appreciate both what I have, and what they have. Maybe someday we will take them to see our pool, our teenage mutant ninja turtle green cesspool that is. Somehow, I don't think that is the best way to express our gratitude. Still, we got to see how the other half lives.... maybe they would like the same chance?
So we got picked up from our regular Friday night shopping trip bus stop at the supermarket by a couple of American guys who are here working on contracts and staying in the villas on the compound. We drove through three separate gate checks before we were officially on the compound, but even after the first gate, I could feel the difference. There was so much greenery everywhere for one thing. The other is the architecture of the apartments and "villas" looked like some thought had actually gone into planning the place. The streets were laid out in typical suburban style with date palms lining the sidewalks. We parked right in front of the villa they shared between five guys. We walked into the entryway, which was the size of two of my bathrooms, and then into a living room dining room that was bigger than my whole apartment. there was a second living room, just for the TV, a kitchen (with a dishwasher!) and then a completely separate laundry room that was bigger than my kitchen/living room. There was even a room just for the maid with it's own private bathroom! (They didn't actually have a live in maid, but they could have...) There was also a back yard porch area with a grill and lawn chairs and everything, even though at the moment it is too hot, even at midnight to hang out out there.
Gemma and I were stunned. We probably looked like idiots standing there with our jaws hanging open. They all just sat back and watched us like we were crazy while we oohed and ahhed over the simplest things, like a toaster and coffee maker, an oven, the fact that there was more than one electrical outlet in the kitchen, and that they had real chairs instead of stools, the fact that the ceilings were a good 10 maybe even 15 feet high, all the ways this place was just superior in every way to where we were staying. Then they dropped the bombshell. This was just the first floor and there were two more stories of this paradise. It took us over a half an hour to get the whole grand tour of the place, it was that big. One guy had a hallway of closets longer than my bedroom and living room combined leading up to his bathroom. Another guy had 2 TVs, and all of them had their own bathroom (with bathtubs!). It was all so overwhelming. I felt like we had been dropped right into upper middle class America.
And just to solidify the impression, we were offered a glass of wine. This may not seem like much, but you have to remember that Saudi is an alcohol free country. So to give us this glass of wine, grape juice, sugar and yeast had to sit around for three months in water jugs, then be bottled and sealed up for another little while before it made it into our mouths. They called it "Shower Wine" because they used the maid's spare bathroom shower to store all of the water jugs while they were brewing the wine. The wine was impressively good for having been made in a shower. With an actual fancy wine glass in hand, we had now become fully immersed in little America.
And Gemma and I would have been more than content with just that, but wait, there's more. This compound has not one, not two, but three swimming pools. Of course, we had to go swimming, so the boys took us over to the fitness area, which was less than five minutes away, and the best part was, we didn't have to wear our Abayas! We passed through a really long fancy looking dining area and then down some stairs to peek into an indoor tennis court. Actually, two indoor tennis courts next to each other. Then we went down another flight of stairs to an ice-skating rink. Can you believe it? In Saudi, an ice-skating rink? How much refrigeration equipment do you think it takes to keep ice frozen in year round temperatures of 85-120 degrees fahrenheit? There was also a whole gym with cardio equipment and weights and basically any exercise stuff you could think of. Finally, we went back up a level to the olympic size swimming pool. It was crazy. There was a diving board, and a ceiling that had to be three stories above us. Suspended from the ceiling were bunches of large fiberglass dolphins, usually in families of three. I counted at least 27 dolphins, but there may have been more.
And the best part of all of this? We were the only people there. There was absolutely no one around. I couldn't believe that more people weren't spending their Friday night swimming in a pool. If we lived in a place with a pool, I would be going swimming every day. No, twice a day. You would have to drag me out of the pool kicking and screaming. Nowhere on earth has swimming ever been more on my mind than here, where the heat and the dust constantly make you dream of water. We swam until 10pm, when the pool officially closes, but there was no one there to kick us out, so we could have gone on swimming forever if it weren't for the fact that we were hungry.
We went back to their villa, and they were kind enough to offer us the use of their showers to rinse the chlorine off. They even let us use their towels! I was happy to have a shower, but I was ecstatic when I discovered the water did not taste salty. For the first time in three months, I was bathing in fresh water! Just when I thought nothing could top that, they offered to wash and dry our bathing suits for us right then and there. They had a washing machine and a dryer! I can't believe how lucky they are! They can't believe how easily impressed we are.
So we made our way to the restaurant for a buffet. The restaurant was large, and because it was one of the only places in Dammam where women were allowed to smoke shisha, the place was full of women. It was oddly decorated in a weird combination of traditional Arabic designs and patterns crossed with neon colors and high tech tables lit with rotating colored lights. So when we sat down our table went from blue to green to red and back before we had even decided who would sit where. This was cool at first, but got to be somewhat distracting when we were trying to eat. There were a lot of Philipino and Indian staff waiting at every turn to be helpful. One woman followed me around the buffet, and at first I thought she was following me because I wasn't in thier face recognition software so she was worried i was a terrorist or something. I did my best to pretend I didn't notice she was there. I focused instead on the many kinds of meat and hummus and salad, and only after I had already filled my plate did I notice that they had a chef making fajitas and another chef making mongolian noodles. The woman who had been following noticed my plate was now full, and insisted on carrying it back to my table for me, while the chefs insisted on cooking me up some fajitas and noodles. I told them what I wanted added to each dish, and then they sent me away. I thought that was weird, but maybe I hadn't used the secret code word or something and chef-made dishes were only for people who actually lived here, but after a few minutes, someone dropped off both dishes to our table. Every time I started to get up to get something, water, more juice, knapkins, someone was right there to get it for us. They were so attentive, I was beginning to wonder if they would even go to the bathroom for me.
The food was just as good as the service, but unfortunately, because of Ramadan and all the fasting, I couldn't eat half of what I wanted to eat. I didn't even have room for dessert even after sitting around for an hour after we had all finished eating so we could smoke shisha. Normally when we smoke shisha, we get one or two shishas for the whole group. But here, shisha automatically comes with the buffet, so we each got our very own. And they had some unusual flavors too. I got watermelon, which was pretty great, but not quite as good as grape mint. Gemma got grape cherry, which I thought tasted like feet, but which one of the guys insisted tasted like lifesavers. By the time we had finished it was nearly 2am, and I didn't ever want to leave.
Lucky for us, the guys offered to let us stay the night on one of the four couches in their two living rooms. Sadly, those couches were ten times more comfortable than my own bed. I had probably the best night's sleep I have had since arriving on that couch. I'd like to attribute all of that to the softness of the cushions, but at least some of it was the shower wine, and the rest had to have been just knowing I was free of all the Saudi restraints so long as I was tucked up inside this amazing Oasis Compound.
In the morning, they offered to make us breakfast, and who would turn down eggs served up Mexican style by our very own in house chef? After breakfast, I asked reluctantly asked about getting a taxi, but the guys insisted we should stay since we hadn't experienced all there was to do on the compound. Even though it was the weekend, some of the guys still had to work, but a few of them were off, so they took us to the bowling alley. That's right, the bowling alley. We went to another part of the compound, which was also somehow only 5 minutes away (how is everything so centrally located to their villa?) The bowling alley was attached to a pool hall with six pool tables and an arcade area. The best part? It's all free! The arcade games don't take coins, the bowling is free, the pool is free, it's all free! I have no idea how they can afford to pay the indian man with a suit and bowtie who took our food orders and brought us drinks when we don't have to pay for any of the activities. I want to make this perfectly clear, it wasn't free because the guys were nice enough to pay for us (even thought they were nice enough to pay for dinner the night before). There was no need because the activities were all free. Completely free!
We played two games, and I lost both times, but I really didn't care. After we finished we decided to waste a few hours in the arcade. I played pinball and packman and some weird virtual sword slashing game that didn't really recognize arm movements. Then I played a basketball shooting game and I managed to get 61 points in 40 seconds! I beat Gemma, but was outdone by one of the guys who managed to get 85. Believe me, I spent at least a half hour trying to beat his score. My arms got tired before I came close. I've never been that into video games, but Gemma is, so while she played every game to her hearts content, I wondered next door to the indoor soccer field. I had only worn flipflops, but the soccer ball was made out of tennis ball material so we decided it would be okay to play barefoot, so we did some one on one for a while, and then slowly a few more of the guys joined us and we kicked the ball around for a while. I really hit my toe hard on something at some point, maybe the ball, maybe somebodies shin, I can't remember, but it has a nice purplish tint to it now. I also started to get a blister on the ball of my foot after a while, so I called it quits. Sadly, that little bit of swimming and soccer and shooting hoops was probably the most activity I've been able to do since arriving in Saudi!
It took a little longer to pull Gemma away from her games, but eventually we managed it. The crazy part was, with all this free stuff to do, we only ever saw one other person come in that whole time. What is going on? How can all these great features be free, and no one takes advantage of them. I can only suspect that most of the people are away at the moment for the Ramadan and Eid Holidays and it will be busy again in August.
Somehow we managed to waste that entire day. When we left the arcade I was surprised to find it was already dark. In fact, it was nearly ten o'clock. The guys offered to drop us off at the mall, our pick up point for the bus back to our crappy lives. Before we left though, they let us raid the maids bedroom, which they had been using to store all the stuff they didn't want. I got an awesome rice cooker, a can opener, some measuring cups and a tupperware container. Gemma got a pan, a cheese grater, an alarm clock and a vegetable steamer. We made out like bandits. The hardest thing was putting on our abayas to leave. They don't weigh that much, but when I slipped it onto my shoulders they felt instantly heavy. There is no way we can ever repay these guys for that beautiful escape from reality.
But as we drove back out of the three gates, and nearly died in several completely normal near misses in our drive back to the mall I started thinking about how bored the guys are living there in their expat bubble. I thought about how little they knew of life outside of the compound walls and beyond their office. For them, there is no amazing great escape from Saudi for a weekend. For them, it is all the time. So, there is nothing to look forward to but leaving. It got me thinking that I'm glad I live in such a crappy apartment. I'm glad I get to experience both worlds, so that I can appreciate both what I have, and what they have. Maybe someday we will take them to see our pool, our teenage mutant ninja turtle green cesspool that is. Somehow, I don't think that is the best way to express our gratitude. Still, we got to see how the other half lives.... maybe they would like the same chance?
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Working in Ramadan
The entire rhythm of the country changes during Ramadan. Work stops, or is significantly reduced, and shops and restaurants are closed until after 7pm, but open late into the wee hours. Saudi's will stay awake all night and then sleep through the day to help ease the stress of fasting. Our hours were reduced during Ramadan. We didn't start until 9am and finished at 2pm. Even then, because there were no summer school classes, we weren't actually doing any work. The couches on the other hand were overloaded. I never saw them vacant once during Ramadan. They were full of women napping, exhausted from staying up late to visit and eat. Even for those of us who weren't fasting, things changed. It is illegal to be seen eating or drinking in public even if you are not Muslim. Technically, we could eat at work, we just had to make sure no one saw us, and that whatever food we ate had no smell. Since all of the stores were closed, our shopping trips were now from 7pm to 11pm instead of the early afternoon. It was weird buying milk and bread after 10pm, and seeing whole families with excited children out this late too.
I fell into a pattern like everyone else, going to sleep late (technically, really really early) then sleeping through the hottest parts of the day. I managed to avoid eating at work, but ate as soon as I came home from work, I would eat something before falling asleep for a quick 2 hour nap. After only two or three days, the new schedule seemed normal and I didn't mind not eating. I did have a problem not drinking though and I often hid in my cubicle chugging water. After all, I've been using my time not teaching to jog around campus every morning. Not bad getting paid to exercise and not eat, this may be the greatest new diet fad of all time. Of course, the over indulging in the evenings may sort of cancel that one out. The dates alone people typically eat to break fast are sugary calorific nightmares, albeit delicious nightmares. I like the just ripe dates that are still yellow and crunchy. They are crisp and sweet, but also slightly tart. After a week or two, they dry into the sweet chewy dates everyone knows and loves. I find them to be almost too sweet on their own already, but some dates are even packaged with sugar water to make them even sweeter.
One of the other teachers and I passed part of our working days going to the date palms planted out in front of the University. Even though we were less than 50 feet from the building we were stuck inside 8 hours a day for the last 4 months, it felt like a field trip. It was a welcome relief for a long day, and as an added bonus, they were low enough to the ground that we could just pick them. And because no Saudi would ever come outside if they didn't have to, no one was around to see us eating them in public during fasting hours. There were two varieties, yellow dates and red dates. To me, the yellow dates were better fresh, but the red dates were better dried.
We acted like date connoisseurs, even though we knew nothing about dates... "this one has a decidedly sugar cane flavor..." "this bunch was grown on the south side of the palm, so it is milder than those on the west side of the trunk." "You can tell by the bunching pattern that this group will be good for date cakes." I was so glad I sewed pockets into my abaya, because they made perfect date pouches. I always came back to the office with my abaya dragging on the sides from all the extra weight. It was almost worth having to go to work for.
My favorite part of working during Ramadan though, was the afternoon Quran studies. A group of teachers and admin ladies would gather around every afternoon, and together they would read the Quran and talk about what they had read. I never got to take part or listen in, as it was all in Arabic, but it felt good just to see them gathered there. You could see it in their faces that what they were doing was important to them, and that the support of each other was feeding them in a way that eating normally never could. After these sessions, the women always seemed more friendly, open, and kind. Which is another added bonus of Ramadan. Good deeds count double during this time, so they are always willing to help you and do you favors during this time. I usually made sure that if I needed anything, I waited until the afternoon to ask about it. I think I got better results that way.
There was a lot of discussion about Ramadan the way we discuss the commercialization of Christmas. Some people worried that Ramadan had become about the great sales at the grocery stores and malls. Or that the more spiritual side of Ramadan - the extra prayers and studying of the Quran - that are supposed to be done to fill the hours of fasting. Instead, most people spend this time sleeping and focus instead on the late night parties to celebrate breaking fast with friends and family. This "lazy Ramadan" is possible in part because by Saudi law, life during Ramadan has been made as easy as possible. Unlike Muslims in the rest of the world, who have to continue to work normal hours and be tempted by everyone else who is eating in front of them. Saudi's have reduced or sometimes even cancelled work hours, and it is illegal to be seen eating or drinking in public. Some of the Muslims here from England claim that Ramadan here is like cheating, it doesn't mean as much to them because it isn't the same level of sacrifice, which adds even more to the feeling that Ramadan no longer means what it used to.
I fell into a pattern like everyone else, going to sleep late (technically, really really early) then sleeping through the hottest parts of the day. I managed to avoid eating at work, but ate as soon as I came home from work, I would eat something before falling asleep for a quick 2 hour nap. After only two or three days, the new schedule seemed normal and I didn't mind not eating. I did have a problem not drinking though and I often hid in my cubicle chugging water. After all, I've been using my time not teaching to jog around campus every morning. Not bad getting paid to exercise and not eat, this may be the greatest new diet fad of all time. Of course, the over indulging in the evenings may sort of cancel that one out. The dates alone people typically eat to break fast are sugary calorific nightmares, albeit delicious nightmares. I like the just ripe dates that are still yellow and crunchy. They are crisp and sweet, but also slightly tart. After a week or two, they dry into the sweet chewy dates everyone knows and loves. I find them to be almost too sweet on their own already, but some dates are even packaged with sugar water to make them even sweeter.
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| These dates are delicious! |
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| A just ripe fresh date.... |
My favorite part of working during Ramadan though, was the afternoon Quran studies. A group of teachers and admin ladies would gather around every afternoon, and together they would read the Quran and talk about what they had read. I never got to take part or listen in, as it was all in Arabic, but it felt good just to see them gathered there. You could see it in their faces that what they were doing was important to them, and that the support of each other was feeding them in a way that eating normally never could. After these sessions, the women always seemed more friendly, open, and kind. Which is another added bonus of Ramadan. Good deeds count double during this time, so they are always willing to help you and do you favors during this time. I usually made sure that if I needed anything, I waited until the afternoon to ask about it. I think I got better results that way.
There was a lot of discussion about Ramadan the way we discuss the commercialization of Christmas. Some people worried that Ramadan had become about the great sales at the grocery stores and malls. Or that the more spiritual side of Ramadan - the extra prayers and studying of the Quran - that are supposed to be done to fill the hours of fasting. Instead, most people spend this time sleeping and focus instead on the late night parties to celebrate breaking fast with friends and family. This "lazy Ramadan" is possible in part because by Saudi law, life during Ramadan has been made as easy as possible. Unlike Muslims in the rest of the world, who have to continue to work normal hours and be tempted by everyone else who is eating in front of them. Saudi's have reduced or sometimes even cancelled work hours, and it is illegal to be seen eating or drinking in public. Some of the Muslims here from England claim that Ramadan here is like cheating, it doesn't mean as much to them because it isn't the same level of sacrifice, which adds even more to the feeling that Ramadan no longer means what it used to.
Friday, July 18, 2014
McDonalds
So, I never did get my iqama or my passport. Apparently, the government limits how many iqamas they issue of each nationality to each company. Guess whose company has already exceeded their quota on Americans for this time period? So, on the last day before my two week vacation to nowhere, the official status of my passport/iqama according to the company is that the government still has it and they have not heard back from the government about whether or not they will grant me an iqama. According to the saudi government website "visa inquiry" page, they either have no record of me at all, or it has already expired. When I brought this to the companies attention, the representative mumbled something about possibly having to send me back and start the process all over again with a brand new visa, but he wouldn't explain why that would be necessary or whether he meant back to Riyadh, or back to the US. He just said we should wait to hear back from the government before any big decisions were made. If I hadn't already lost most of my hair to the dodgy water here, I would be tearing it out in frustration over dealing with this company.
In the meantime, I've resigned myself to a staycation, here in the lovely area 91 of Dammam. Luckily, even though there are only 5 of us in the whole apartment building right now, they are still providing a bus for shopping trips. So, like every Friday, we headed off to the Cornish to wonder around supermarkets and risk our lives crossing the street to walk along a somewhat smelly boardwalk, and sit around playing cards on the few hundred feet of surprisingly green grass planted between a horseshoe of America's most beloved chain restaurants. Instead of looking up at the stars, we can lay back and gaze at the neon glow of Chilis, Taco Bell, TGIF, Starbucks, Red Lobster, and McDonalds.
We have gotten into the habit now of playing Rummy, and the pockets I sewed into my abaya happen to be the perfect size for a deck of cards. I bring them everywhere with me, and they have come in surprisingly handy. I won the first four games we played, but have subsequently lost every game since. Beginners luck I guess. But it is still fun, and we are so limited on fun here, so we take what we can get.
After a few games, we were pretty hot. Even at 10pm, the temperature is still around 38 celcius and add to that humidity, and the abaya, it can get pretty uncomfortable. So when someone suggested a trip to McDonalds for an ice-cream, I was all for it. It would be my first trip to McDonalds since arriving, and seeing as how I was on vacation, I figured I might as well spend the time exploring places I had never been before. We walked across the grass and the parking lot, and came up on it from the rear, meaning we had to walk through the drive through to the other side of the building. We were hot and tired and a little nervous we might be run over by a car racing around the corner into the drive-thru without looking (a very real possibility) so we just went in the first door we came to without really thinking about it. Instantly, the room froze. I felt about 20 pairs of eyeballs all shift to us. At first, I couldn't figure out what the problem was. My first thought was that it was prayer and they were closed, but no, then there would be no one in the room instead of a few dozen men staring us down. Then it hit me, we had entered into the men's side, instead of the family seating. I guess because McDonalds is so western, and because it isn't a proper restaurant, my mind sort of forgot to think about looking for the right entrance. As soon as I realized our mistake, I turned around and headed back outside to walk around the building to the family section. Gemma walked calmly through the air conditioned men's section to the door on the other side of the room right next to the door for the women's section. We met up outside in front of the family entrance, and teased each other about our different approaches to the same situation. I wanted out as quick as possible, so I turned tail and fled, but Gemma felt entitled to a little AC, so she said screw the rules, and let the men stare at her apparently dangerously arousing shapeless black form, with the occasional flash of toe under her abaya. Scandalous.
Safely on the other side in the family section, there was someone ahead of us at the register, so the guy taking orders on the men's side, leaned across the wall dividing the two sections (but not the counter and kitchen area) to take our order of two ice-cream cones. Never has a thing tasted so lovely. We decided to stay and eat them in the air-conditioning, so that we could eat them before they melted outside. There was no seating in the women's section downstairs. Instead, there was a staircase that led to the playroom and eating area upstairs. When we reached the top, my first thought wasn't of a restaurant, but a locker room with rows of showers. The room was divided into stalls with tables inside, and each stall had a curtain rod and curtain, so that each family or group could pull the curtains closed and have an instant private dining room. This is necessary so that the women who wear Niqabs (the ninja mask) can take them off to eat without fear of being seen by the men in other families who may also happen to be eating nearby. At first, it was just weird. But honestly, I kind of liked it. I know there have been times when I wished I couldn't see the guy across the lobby shoving the BigMac into his mouth and chewing it with his mouth wide open for all to see, or overhear the couple arguing over catsup in the booth behind me. It was very secluded and intimate, and might have even been peaceful, if it weren't for the screaming kids running around through the narrow passages between shower stall like it was a maze.
After we finished our ice-cream, we went in search of a restroom, but instead found the play area. It was kind of your typical play area. There was a two story slide and netting to climb, and even a ball pit, but it was the special editions to the play room that really caught my attention. This McDonalds had a foosball table, and three, count them, three, playstation consoles set up for two players with the controllers attached at kid height. Gemma and I both said "wow" at the same time, but hers was an excited "I wish they had this when I was a kid / do you think these kids would give me a turn?" kind of wow, whereas mine was more of a "wow: is it really this bad that kids can't even give up their video games long enough to go to McDonalds anymore?, and where are all these kids parents?" kind of wow. We looked at each other and laughed again at our different reaction to the same situation. We looked for a ball to try to play foosball, but there wasn't one, and it looked like the kids weren't giving up there spots in front of the playstations anytime soon, so we decided to call it a night.
So, it isn't Bahrain. But I have to say, this McDonalds was still an adventure, and it felt like a trip to a foreign place for me all the same. Maybe being stuck here and having to explore what's been right in front of me all along won't be such a bad thing after all.
In the meantime, I've resigned myself to a staycation, here in the lovely area 91 of Dammam. Luckily, even though there are only 5 of us in the whole apartment building right now, they are still providing a bus for shopping trips. So, like every Friday, we headed off to the Cornish to wonder around supermarkets and risk our lives crossing the street to walk along a somewhat smelly boardwalk, and sit around playing cards on the few hundred feet of surprisingly green grass planted between a horseshoe of America's most beloved chain restaurants. Instead of looking up at the stars, we can lay back and gaze at the neon glow of Chilis, Taco Bell, TGIF, Starbucks, Red Lobster, and McDonalds.
.jpg) |
| Playing rummy at the Khobar Cornish |
After a few games, we were pretty hot. Even at 10pm, the temperature is still around 38 celcius and add to that humidity, and the abaya, it can get pretty uncomfortable. So when someone suggested a trip to McDonalds for an ice-cream, I was all for it. It would be my first trip to McDonalds since arriving, and seeing as how I was on vacation, I figured I might as well spend the time exploring places I had never been before. We walked across the grass and the parking lot, and came up on it from the rear, meaning we had to walk through the drive through to the other side of the building. We were hot and tired and a little nervous we might be run over by a car racing around the corner into the drive-thru without looking (a very real possibility) so we just went in the first door we came to without really thinking about it. Instantly, the room froze. I felt about 20 pairs of eyeballs all shift to us. At first, I couldn't figure out what the problem was. My first thought was that it was prayer and they were closed, but no, then there would be no one in the room instead of a few dozen men staring us down. Then it hit me, we had entered into the men's side, instead of the family seating. I guess because McDonalds is so western, and because it isn't a proper restaurant, my mind sort of forgot to think about looking for the right entrance. As soon as I realized our mistake, I turned around and headed back outside to walk around the building to the family section. Gemma walked calmly through the air conditioned men's section to the door on the other side of the room right next to the door for the women's section. We met up outside in front of the family entrance, and teased each other about our different approaches to the same situation. I wanted out as quick as possible, so I turned tail and fled, but Gemma felt entitled to a little AC, so she said screw the rules, and let the men stare at her apparently dangerously arousing shapeless black form, with the occasional flash of toe under her abaya. Scandalous.
Safely on the other side in the family section, there was someone ahead of us at the register, so the guy taking orders on the men's side, leaned across the wall dividing the two sections (but not the counter and kitchen area) to take our order of two ice-cream cones. Never has a thing tasted so lovely. We decided to stay and eat them in the air-conditioning, so that we could eat them before they melted outside. There was no seating in the women's section downstairs. Instead, there was a staircase that led to the playroom and eating area upstairs. When we reached the top, my first thought wasn't of a restaurant, but a locker room with rows of showers. The room was divided into stalls with tables inside, and each stall had a curtain rod and curtain, so that each family or group could pull the curtains closed and have an instant private dining room. This is necessary so that the women who wear Niqabs (the ninja mask) can take them off to eat without fear of being seen by the men in other families who may also happen to be eating nearby. At first, it was just weird. But honestly, I kind of liked it. I know there have been times when I wished I couldn't see the guy across the lobby shoving the BigMac into his mouth and chewing it with his mouth wide open for all to see, or overhear the couple arguing over catsup in the booth behind me. It was very secluded and intimate, and might have even been peaceful, if it weren't for the screaming kids running around through the narrow passages between shower stall like it was a maze.
After we finished our ice-cream, we went in search of a restroom, but instead found the play area. It was kind of your typical play area. There was a two story slide and netting to climb, and even a ball pit, but it was the special editions to the play room that really caught my attention. This McDonalds had a foosball table, and three, count them, three, playstation consoles set up for two players with the controllers attached at kid height. Gemma and I both said "wow" at the same time, but hers was an excited "I wish they had this when I was a kid / do you think these kids would give me a turn?" kind of wow, whereas mine was more of a "wow: is it really this bad that kids can't even give up their video games long enough to go to McDonalds anymore?, and where are all these kids parents?" kind of wow. We looked at each other and laughed again at our different reaction to the same situation. We looked for a ball to try to play foosball, but there wasn't one, and it looked like the kids weren't giving up there spots in front of the playstations anytime soon, so we decided to call it a night.
So, it isn't Bahrain. But I have to say, this McDonalds was still an adventure, and it felt like a trip to a foreign place for me all the same. Maybe being stuck here and having to explore what's been right in front of me all along won't be such a bad thing after all.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Vacation! *Inshallah*
I may have mentioned that the company I work for is, how can I put this..... the least organized most irrational company I have ever come across. I have been looking forward to the upcoming Eid Holiday, which is a National holiday mandated by the Saudi Government. We are being given a paid vacation from the 18th of July to the 2nd of August. That's 16 days of paid leave!
I applied for my leave at the same time as everyone else in the office. We all filled in all the same paperwork on the same day (the first possible day it was allowed). And then we waited. Some for them to issue tickets home if they were renewing their contract, others just for approval, an exit visa, and the return of their passports, which the company keeps with them in Riyadh. One by one, everyone but me received what they needed to go on vacation.
I've been spending my wait time debating how I should spend those two weeks. Part of me wants to come home to see friends and family, bring home things I brought that are useless here, and load my suitcase up for the return trip with more useful supplies. The other side of me has been checking for the cheapest ticket out of Saudi to just about anywhere else. I've always wanted to see Petra in Jordan, or maybe I could go to Sri Lanka, or India, or Ankor Wat in Cambodia... the possibilities are endless. You might be thinking, wow, this vacation is only 11 days away and you haven't yet decided how to spend it? Shouldn't you have made arrangements or booked tickets or something by now? The answer is, yes, I would have loved to have all of this arranged months ago.
The thing is, I've been here long enough to know that you can't make any plans when it comes to this company until you are absolutely sure you will be given written permission to leave from the company, the exit/re-entry visa, and passport that will allow you to do so. And you are never absolutely sure with this company until the last possible minute. I have been doing what I can to encourage the process of getting my iqama and exit visa to move along. I've sent one email a week to all the email addresses I have for anyone in the company for the last month and a half. Of those half dozen or so emails, I finally got one response about two weeks ago saying simply: Someone is working on it. You will have it soon.
You may be wondering what is so very complicated about granting permission to leave and giving me an exit visa and my passport back. The answer is that nothing here isn't complicated. About a week ago, Layla, who arrived in Dammam with me called a friend of hers who works in the office in Riyadh because she had also not heard anything about her leave. Layla had been trying to call the man in charge of vacations for over a week and he never answered or got back to her. Out of desperation, she called her friend, and made her walk with her cell phone up to the third floor to the man's office and forcibly put it to his ear so he would talk to her. This is how we found out that we both needed to resubmit our leave request forms. Turns out, because neither of us were taking any additional days beyond the Eid Holiday, we were confusing payroll. We needed to officially request only one week off, but, would be paid for both weeks, "they promise". And how long had they had this incorrect paperwork? How long had they known, but not told us that we needed to resubmit the documents? Since the day after we initially submitted them on May 28th. So we filled in the paperwork again, this time requesting only one week off, signed the forms and had them sent off to Riyadh. Layla and I crossed our fingers, that this would solve the problem, and we would have our exit visas soon.
Of course, we had only overcome one hurdle. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. With only three weeks left, I upgraded my email flow to one a day, and obtained several phone numbers for the office in Riyadh, which I called religiously twice a day, with absolutely no answer, and conveniently, no voice mail, either.
Finally, over the weekend, I got a text saying that a new person would be handling my paperwork, and after emailing this new person, I received the good news that they would issue me my exit/rentry visa as soon as I paid the government fees online. I was so excited! There was just one problem... I can't pay for anything online, or be issued an exit/rentry visa, unless I have an iqama.
What does that mean? Well, I entered the country initially on a three months visitor visa, which gives the company time to process my resident permit, called an iqama. I have heard varying reports about how long it takes the government to process an iqama, but the general consensus for people working for other companies seems to be between 3 weeks and 1 month. For our company, it almost always takes the full three months, if not longer in some cases. This iqama is necessary, not only because without it I am technically in the country illegally once it expires on July 23rd, but also because you need it to open a bank account, rent an apartment, send money overseas, pay for things online, and most importantly for me at the moment, be issued an exit / re-entry visa.
Sara, who came to Dammam at the same time as me, but arrived in Riyadh a few weeks before me, is also still waiting for her iqama. Her initial visa expired two weeks ago. Frighteningly, the company either doesn't know (even though she has told the admin ladies here and several people in Riyadh) or doesn't care. I'm not sure which is scarier. In the one email response I received from the company two weeks ago, they had said I would get my iqama "soon". My calls and emails to pin down exactly when "soon" might be, have so far gone unanswered.
Today, one of the admin ladies came in to tell me I could pay for my exit/reentry visa online today and they would issue it to me. I asked her if it was possible to get and use an exit/reentry visa without an iqama, and she looked surprised and said, "You still don't have an iqama?" Which seems like a strange response from someone I have asked every week for the last two months if my iqama has arrived, and who would be the one, if it did arrive, to give it to me. She told me to wait, and not pay or do anything, and she went off to call Faisel, the highest in the chain of command here in Dammam.
A few hours later she came back and told me that perhaps I should start getting use to the idea that I may not be able to go anywhere during the Eid Holiday. She said the company has been having trouble getting iqamas processed. This could either mean the government itself has a backlog, or more likely, the company is being blacklisted by the ministry at the moment because of poor business practices, a lack of bribe payments, an insult to the wrong prince, or possibly all three. I asked if it was possible to get an extension on my original visa, and she said maybe, but didn't seem too hopeful. "Anyway, we still have a little over a week", she said. "Inshallah, you will get what you need."
When I first learned this word, "inshallah" (god willing), I liked the expression. It seemed hopeful. I can now say that I officially hate this word. I hate it because it doesn't seem hopeful anymore. It seems like an excuse for the Laissez-faire attitude that what will happen will happen, and we can do nothing to influence or change that. Here is an extreme example, accidents are frequent and often deadly here, but almost no one wears a seat belt. I asked a Saudi taxi driver about this once when I noticed he wasn't buckled in. "Inshallah," he said, "I won't need it." It is one thing to accept that when things do happen, God has willed it, and he will help you deal with it and get through it. It is another matter entirely to decide not to take any action to effect outcomes before they happen. If you see a train coming straight for you, but don't move, because you think if God wills it he will stop the train for you, and if he doesn't will it, then he wanted you dead, then you are going to be both dead and stupid. I say, the fact that God allowed you to see the train coming is evidence enough that he wanted you to live, but you have to do your part too.
Obviously, nothing that serious is at stake here. There are worse things than being paid for two weeks to not work and stay home in your apartment. But the attitude prevails in everything. For example, I asked one of the students if she thought she did well on her exam, she said, "inshallah, I will pass". Then I asked her if she had studied, and she said "No." I recalled the expression I learned as a child; "God helps those who help themselves", and I had to wonder if she saw the flaw in relying on God to make things happen in your life when you don't take advantage of the chances he throws your way. So, if I don't get to leave Saudi on my vacation, I won't blame God. I'll blame inshallah. And of course, the incompetent disorganized company.
I applied for my leave at the same time as everyone else in the office. We all filled in all the same paperwork on the same day (the first possible day it was allowed). And then we waited. Some for them to issue tickets home if they were renewing their contract, others just for approval, an exit visa, and the return of their passports, which the company keeps with them in Riyadh. One by one, everyone but me received what they needed to go on vacation.
I've been spending my wait time debating how I should spend those two weeks. Part of me wants to come home to see friends and family, bring home things I brought that are useless here, and load my suitcase up for the return trip with more useful supplies. The other side of me has been checking for the cheapest ticket out of Saudi to just about anywhere else. I've always wanted to see Petra in Jordan, or maybe I could go to Sri Lanka, or India, or Ankor Wat in Cambodia... the possibilities are endless. You might be thinking, wow, this vacation is only 11 days away and you haven't yet decided how to spend it? Shouldn't you have made arrangements or booked tickets or something by now? The answer is, yes, I would have loved to have all of this arranged months ago.
The thing is, I've been here long enough to know that you can't make any plans when it comes to this company until you are absolutely sure you will be given written permission to leave from the company, the exit/re-entry visa, and passport that will allow you to do so. And you are never absolutely sure with this company until the last possible minute. I have been doing what I can to encourage the process of getting my iqama and exit visa to move along. I've sent one email a week to all the email addresses I have for anyone in the company for the last month and a half. Of those half dozen or so emails, I finally got one response about two weeks ago saying simply: Someone is working on it. You will have it soon.
You may be wondering what is so very complicated about granting permission to leave and giving me an exit visa and my passport back. The answer is that nothing here isn't complicated. About a week ago, Layla, who arrived in Dammam with me called a friend of hers who works in the office in Riyadh because she had also not heard anything about her leave. Layla had been trying to call the man in charge of vacations for over a week and he never answered or got back to her. Out of desperation, she called her friend, and made her walk with her cell phone up to the third floor to the man's office and forcibly put it to his ear so he would talk to her. This is how we found out that we both needed to resubmit our leave request forms. Turns out, because neither of us were taking any additional days beyond the Eid Holiday, we were confusing payroll. We needed to officially request only one week off, but, would be paid for both weeks, "they promise". And how long had they had this incorrect paperwork? How long had they known, but not told us that we needed to resubmit the documents? Since the day after we initially submitted them on May 28th. So we filled in the paperwork again, this time requesting only one week off, signed the forms and had them sent off to Riyadh. Layla and I crossed our fingers, that this would solve the problem, and we would have our exit visas soon.
Of course, we had only overcome one hurdle. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. With only three weeks left, I upgraded my email flow to one a day, and obtained several phone numbers for the office in Riyadh, which I called religiously twice a day, with absolutely no answer, and conveniently, no voice mail, either.
Finally, over the weekend, I got a text saying that a new person would be handling my paperwork, and after emailing this new person, I received the good news that they would issue me my exit/rentry visa as soon as I paid the government fees online. I was so excited! There was just one problem... I can't pay for anything online, or be issued an exit/rentry visa, unless I have an iqama.
What does that mean? Well, I entered the country initially on a three months visitor visa, which gives the company time to process my resident permit, called an iqama. I have heard varying reports about how long it takes the government to process an iqama, but the general consensus for people working for other companies seems to be between 3 weeks and 1 month. For our company, it almost always takes the full three months, if not longer in some cases. This iqama is necessary, not only because without it I am technically in the country illegally once it expires on July 23rd, but also because you need it to open a bank account, rent an apartment, send money overseas, pay for things online, and most importantly for me at the moment, be issued an exit / re-entry visa.
Sara, who came to Dammam at the same time as me, but arrived in Riyadh a few weeks before me, is also still waiting for her iqama. Her initial visa expired two weeks ago. Frighteningly, the company either doesn't know (even though she has told the admin ladies here and several people in Riyadh) or doesn't care. I'm not sure which is scarier. In the one email response I received from the company two weeks ago, they had said I would get my iqama "soon". My calls and emails to pin down exactly when "soon" might be, have so far gone unanswered.
Today, one of the admin ladies came in to tell me I could pay for my exit/reentry visa online today and they would issue it to me. I asked her if it was possible to get and use an exit/reentry visa without an iqama, and she looked surprised and said, "You still don't have an iqama?" Which seems like a strange response from someone I have asked every week for the last two months if my iqama has arrived, and who would be the one, if it did arrive, to give it to me. She told me to wait, and not pay or do anything, and she went off to call Faisel, the highest in the chain of command here in Dammam.
A few hours later she came back and told me that perhaps I should start getting use to the idea that I may not be able to go anywhere during the Eid Holiday. She said the company has been having trouble getting iqamas processed. This could either mean the government itself has a backlog, or more likely, the company is being blacklisted by the ministry at the moment because of poor business practices, a lack of bribe payments, an insult to the wrong prince, or possibly all three. I asked if it was possible to get an extension on my original visa, and she said maybe, but didn't seem too hopeful. "Anyway, we still have a little over a week", she said. "Inshallah, you will get what you need."
When I first learned this word, "inshallah" (god willing), I liked the expression. It seemed hopeful. I can now say that I officially hate this word. I hate it because it doesn't seem hopeful anymore. It seems like an excuse for the Laissez-faire attitude that what will happen will happen, and we can do nothing to influence or change that. Here is an extreme example, accidents are frequent and often deadly here, but almost no one wears a seat belt. I asked a Saudi taxi driver about this once when I noticed he wasn't buckled in. "Inshallah," he said, "I won't need it." It is one thing to accept that when things do happen, God has willed it, and he will help you deal with it and get through it. It is another matter entirely to decide not to take any action to effect outcomes before they happen. If you see a train coming straight for you, but don't move, because you think if God wills it he will stop the train for you, and if he doesn't will it, then he wanted you dead, then you are going to be both dead and stupid. I say, the fact that God allowed you to see the train coming is evidence enough that he wanted you to live, but you have to do your part too.
Obviously, nothing that serious is at stake here. There are worse things than being paid for two weeks to not work and stay home in your apartment. But the attitude prevails in everything. For example, I asked one of the students if she thought she did well on her exam, she said, "inshallah, I will pass". Then I asked her if she had studied, and she said "No." I recalled the expression I learned as a child; "God helps those who help themselves", and I had to wonder if she saw the flaw in relying on God to make things happen in your life when you don't take advantage of the chances he throws your way. So, if I don't get to leave Saudi on my vacation, I won't blame God. I'll blame inshallah. And of course, the incompetent disorganized company.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Trip to Bahrain (almost)
My Aramco friend is getting ready to leave for his summer vacation, as are Atef and his family. So, to say goodbye, and for lack of anything better to do, we decided to take a trip to Bahrain. Or, as close to Bahrain as we could get anyway. Atef's family and I do not have exit visas that allow us to leave the country, so we couldn't actually go to Bahrain. We could however, get on the King Faud Causeway (the 20th largest bridge in the world) and drive to Middle Island, a man made embankment in the middle of the bridge connecting Saudi to the island nation of Bahrain and houses the border control.
We went just as the sun was setting, which is a lovely time to go. Getting there (getting anywhere) was a challenge because there was an accident blocking the road we needed. After about three rounds of "Elephant went on a trip" the cars behind us had all reversed one by one and taken a side road, so we followed suit and eventually made it out of traffic and were on our way once again. Not far from the bridge we passed the largest abandoned building I have ever seen. It was supposed to be the largest mall in the Gulf region, but like so many other projects around here, was abandoned. Now it is just the skeleton of what might have been.
When we finally made it to the causeway and drove out on to the bridge, I got my first real look at the gulf during the day. to my right was a wide beach with many cars driving on the packed sand and lots of garbage. Out the left hand side I could vaguely see the buildings of the Khobar Cornish. Unfortunately it was very hazy, so you couldn't see too far. As we approached the middle Island we could see the tower which has a small cafe on top, the golden arches of a Mickey D's, and a strange sculpture / billboard advertisement thing of a bowl pouring something out. I'm still not sure what it was for.
We drove over to the tower, but were disappointed to find not only closed because it was before 8pm during Ramadan, but really closed, for renovation it seemed. So instead of getting a birds eye view of the island, we parked and walked along the boardwalk next to the VIP lane. If you are wealthy enough to get the VIP pass, you can breeze through the lines at border control, which are regularly upwards of 3 hours long. I figure walking beside it is the closest I will ever get to being in the VIP lane.
At first it was very hot walking along, and as the only thing to see were the piles of gravel along the edge of the island flanked by three rows of barbed wire, I was content to head back to the air conditioned car and call it a day. But the sun was sinking fast, and soon a nice breeze cooled everything down. Now it was easier to enjoy walking along the palm lined sidewalk and watch a few fishing boats in the distance. We passed the time taking "selfies" and other pictures of each other.
When the lights came on, so did the sprinklers, and the kids and I ran through them. It felt great on my hands and face, but abayas are made of this weird material that repels moisture (and airflow), so I didn't really get wet. When the sun had gone down for good, and we heard the call to prayer ending the fast, we walked back to the car slowly. I know I was reluctant to leave. Even though we were technically still in Saudi, and despite the barbed wire, I somehow felt a little freer just by being this close to the border. Maybe someday I'll even make it to the other side.
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| Driving on the Causeway |
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| Lookout tower with Bahrain Flag |
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| I only saw 4 cars use this lane |
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| Atef and his family (and me) |
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| Looking back toward Saudi Notice the barbed wire.... |
Friday, July 4, 2014
Running in Skirts
Warning: This entry contains graphic pictures of an elbow injury.
Being a woman in Saudi Arabia means that your options for physical activity are severely limited. If you do anything outside, you have to do it in an abaya. If you have a job, it's going to be an office job with very little activity (the general consensus is that women are too delicate to handle physical labor). When you are at home, your duties include housework if you are poor, or supervising the Philippino maid if you are middle class or above. All social gatherings that you are allowed to attend with other women involve food as a matter of tradition. So, basically, weight gain is inevitable here.
In an effort to shed the many pounds gained during the school year an look good for the summer vacation, many of the teachers at school are now on a special diet, which involves taking a hormone pellet, that basically tricks your body into thinking it is pregnant. Somehow, this makes you loose weight. I've had it explained to me several times, but I just can't wrap my head around it. In my head, pregnancy equals weight gain, not loss. I'm thinking it has more to do with the fact that in addition to the pellets and a strict list of acceptable foods, they can only have 500 calories a day. Anyone would loose weight eating that little.
Some teachers are taking a slightly different approach and merely trying to eat healthier and exercise. The ones who live on compounds are able to join gyms, or exercise outside abaya free. Those of us who live in the company provided housing would have to take a taxi to a private gym with really high membership fees, which is especially frustrating since there is an all-male gym only 2 blocks away.
I've been doing my part by cooking all my own meals and eating a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables. I have also been doing a little yoga every morning. Now that it is Ramadan, I've been eating even less by skipping lunch at work out of respect for those who are fasting. Without classes to teach, work is pretty tedious. I decided I should take advantage of my boredom and the enclosed campus walls to try to do some jogging sans abaya.
The first day I decided to go and wore tennis shoes to work instead of flip-flops, another teacher noticed and asked if we could run together. I thought, sure, the more the merrier. I'm much more likely to keep up a regular jogging schedule if I have someone to motivate me to go. We went right away when we first arrived at work when the temperature was still in the low 90's to avoid the torturous heat of midday. Now, since pants aren't allowed, we were still wearing skirts. I had some long johns on underneath my skirt (for the air conditioning inside) and so I just hiked up my skirt enough to give my legs free range of motion. We decided to do four laps around a kind of square group of buildings. We did the first lap, and very quickly, she was far out ahead of me. I managed to keep jogging, but let her take the lead. On the second lap, she walked, but I kept up my slow and steady jog. She ran the third lap, I kept up my slow jog, which was by then, quite a struggle. On the forth lap, we walked together. I was relieved. I couldn't handle very much more.
We finished the last lap and then started to make our way in. She suggested that we sprint the last little bit to the door. I thought, sure, why not. So we took off running full speed. At first, I was ahead of her and I was feeling pretty proud of myself. But of course, pride comes before a fall, and as I was thinking of what I would say to gloat when I reached the door first, my skirt came un-tucked and I tripped. It was like those movies where everything happens in slow motion. I was airborn and I stuck out my arms like I was diving for first base, then I hit the pavement and rolled. I almost wish someone had gotten it on film because I think it was probably a pretty impressive piece of stunt work. My jogging buddy ran past, turning her head just long enough to ask "are you okay" before she made a final push to arrive at the door ahead of me,
did a little celebratory win dance, and headed inside without another backward glance. That's what I get for competing.
I picked myself up and checked for injuries. My legs seemed fine, although I could tell I would have a big bruise on my knee. Then I checked my right arm, which had taken most of my weight in the fall. I couldn't see all of it, but what I did see was a bloody mess. I started walking back in and made my way to a bathroom. I decided to try to wash my elbow, temporarily forgetting that the water here is salty. I remembered quick enough when it touched my arm. I don't mind admitting that at that moment, I definitely wanted my mommy. Since she was about 6,387 miles away, I settled for the next best thing. I asked the cleaning ladies. They promptly produced a first aid kit and sat me down. First they wiped the area with an alcohol pad which stung almost as much as the salt water. Next they poured iodine on it, which stung so bad I started questioning my decision to go to them for help. One of them, seeing the face I made, started rubbing my other arm reassuringly and saying something soothing in a language I don't understand. Funny how that helps. It really didn't hurt as much after that. Then they took three gauze pads and put them on my arm and elbow. Finally they taped me up and I was all set to return to work.
The problem is, you never think your elbow is all that important until you can't use it anymore. I went to sit down at my computer and quickly realized that it hurt too much to rest my elbow on the desk while I typed. I couldn't even rest it on the armrest of my chair. Any pressure on it was too much pressure. So I had to just sort of hold up my arm. Even using a sling hurt. I know. I tried to make one with my headscarf. Unsuccessful. I couldn't really do anything except sit around and talk, holding my elbow up. Sadly, it didn't really effect my day that much since, without classes, we pretty much just sit around and talk anyway.
When I got home, I took my bandages off. Mostly because I didn't want the gauze to stick to the wound, but also to give it some air so it would hopefully scab over. And because I must have some sort of death wish, I also cleaned it again with the salty water. After I'd already suffered, it occurred to me that I could have used my bottled drinking water to rinse it. I also forgot to think about was that I didn't have anything to put back on it, and since it was still oozing and stuff, it made sleeping on white sheets a challenge. It was hard to find a position I could lay in that didn't involve my elbow touching anything at all. I spent the first hour or so just trying out different strategies. I sat at the edge and hung my right arm over the side, but my arm started to fall asleep so I had to pull it back in. I tried laying on my stomach with elbow up, but since I couldn't exactly straighten my arm all the way, that was a little uncomfortable. Finally I settled on throwing my right arm over my head, so that the back of my arm rested on my forehead and left my skinned elbow sunny side up. It still tingled a bit and felt like it was burning, but at least I finally managed to get a few hours of sleep.
By morning it was more or less scabbed over. Now it is also swollen, so that stretches the skin of the scab and makes it itch and feel tight. At least I can bend and straighten it all the way again. I think in another few weeks (if I can keep from picking the scab) it should be fine. In the meantime, I've learned my lesson. No more running in skirts.
Being a woman in Saudi Arabia means that your options for physical activity are severely limited. If you do anything outside, you have to do it in an abaya. If you have a job, it's going to be an office job with very little activity (the general consensus is that women are too delicate to handle physical labor). When you are at home, your duties include housework if you are poor, or supervising the Philippino maid if you are middle class or above. All social gatherings that you are allowed to attend with other women involve food as a matter of tradition. So, basically, weight gain is inevitable here.
In an effort to shed the many pounds gained during the school year an look good for the summer vacation, many of the teachers at school are now on a special diet, which involves taking a hormone pellet, that basically tricks your body into thinking it is pregnant. Somehow, this makes you loose weight. I've had it explained to me several times, but I just can't wrap my head around it. In my head, pregnancy equals weight gain, not loss. I'm thinking it has more to do with the fact that in addition to the pellets and a strict list of acceptable foods, they can only have 500 calories a day. Anyone would loose weight eating that little.
Some teachers are taking a slightly different approach and merely trying to eat healthier and exercise. The ones who live on compounds are able to join gyms, or exercise outside abaya free. Those of us who live in the company provided housing would have to take a taxi to a private gym with really high membership fees, which is especially frustrating since there is an all-male gym only 2 blocks away.
I've been doing my part by cooking all my own meals and eating a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables. I have also been doing a little yoga every morning. Now that it is Ramadan, I've been eating even less by skipping lunch at work out of respect for those who are fasting. Without classes to teach, work is pretty tedious. I decided I should take advantage of my boredom and the enclosed campus walls to try to do some jogging sans abaya.
The first day I decided to go and wore tennis shoes to work instead of flip-flops, another teacher noticed and asked if we could run together. I thought, sure, the more the merrier. I'm much more likely to keep up a regular jogging schedule if I have someone to motivate me to go. We went right away when we first arrived at work when the temperature was still in the low 90's to avoid the torturous heat of midday. Now, since pants aren't allowed, we were still wearing skirts. I had some long johns on underneath my skirt (for the air conditioning inside) and so I just hiked up my skirt enough to give my legs free range of motion. We decided to do four laps around a kind of square group of buildings. We did the first lap, and very quickly, she was far out ahead of me. I managed to keep jogging, but let her take the lead. On the second lap, she walked, but I kept up my slow and steady jog. She ran the third lap, I kept up my slow jog, which was by then, quite a struggle. On the forth lap, we walked together. I was relieved. I couldn't handle very much more.
We finished the last lap and then started to make our way in. She suggested that we sprint the last little bit to the door. I thought, sure, why not. So we took off running full speed. At first, I was ahead of her and I was feeling pretty proud of myself. But of course, pride comes before a fall, and as I was thinking of what I would say to gloat when I reached the door first, my skirt came un-tucked and I tripped. It was like those movies where everything happens in slow motion. I was airborn and I stuck out my arms like I was diving for first base, then I hit the pavement and rolled. I almost wish someone had gotten it on film because I think it was probably a pretty impressive piece of stunt work. My jogging buddy ran past, turning her head just long enough to ask "are you okay" before she made a final push to arrive at the door ahead of me,
did a little celebratory win dance, and headed inside without another backward glance. That's what I get for competing.
.jpg) |
| First Aid fix |
The problem is, you never think your elbow is all that important until you can't use it anymore. I went to sit down at my computer and quickly realized that it hurt too much to rest my elbow on the desk while I typed. I couldn't even rest it on the armrest of my chair. Any pressure on it was too much pressure. So I had to just sort of hold up my arm. Even using a sling hurt. I know. I tried to make one with my headscarf. Unsuccessful. I couldn't really do anything except sit around and talk, holding my elbow up. Sadly, it didn't really effect my day that much since, without classes, we pretty much just sit around and talk anyway.
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| After the second clean up |
By morning it was more or less scabbed over. Now it is also swollen, so that stretches the skin of the scab and makes it itch and feel tight. At least I can bend and straighten it all the way again. I think in another few weeks (if I can keep from picking the scab) it should be fine. In the meantime, I've learned my lesson. No more running in skirts.
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