The previous Thursday, one of the admin ladies had come around to tell the classes that on Tuesday, the day before National Day, we would have a 2 hour celebration in the morning and they should wear their traditional clothing or green (the color of the flag). We got no other information about it until Monday night, when we received an email saying that actually the celebration would be during lunch, and only 10 minutes and that we would get more information about it in the morning (we didn't).
In the middle of the first class, the Vice Principal came by to count heads and do her usual panic about attendance. I asked her about the National Day party, and where it would be and what time exactly. She was very flustered and said she didn't have time at the moment and would come back before the end of class to let us know. Sure enough, 2 minutes before the class ended, she came back in. I thought she was going to tell us about the celebration, but instead she started in on the students for wearing jeans and tennis shoes (against the dress code) and at me for allowing them to wear jeans and tennis shoes. The idea behind the dress code was that we should be training the students now to dress like professionals so that when the got to the workplace, they would know how to dress. This is a fine idea, that in general I agree with. However, when the classrooms are this cold, I don't begrudge anyone for wearing pants instead of skirts, or tennis shoes instead of sandals. Also, I wasn't clear why she was upset with me for what the students were wearing. It wasn't as if I had dressed them that morning. I also thought it was a strange day to choose to focus on wardrobe compliance since the girls had been encouraged to wear green and traditional clothes that day, making it something of an exceptional clothing day.
I let her rant for a while, but when class time ended I gently interrupted her to remind her that class was now over, and I needed to let them go so they could get to their next class on time, and could she please tell us where and when the celebration would be? She told me they would stay put as long as she wanted them to. I leaned in and told her quietly that if she expected them to respect our time, we needed to respect theirs and give them the breaks they deserved when they deserved them. She shot me a look of death, and I stepped back and let her go on. After a few more minutes of criticizing wardrobe choices she told us that we would need to meet back here at 11:30 and I would take them up to the library. I pointed out that this was in the middle of our lunch break and we didn't have class then (all the classes had lunch at different times), so it would be better if the students just made their way to the library on their own instead of wasting time coming back here, besides, I had no idea where the library was (I had been in Riyadh when they gave tours of the building). She glared at me again and reiterated the time and the place and very grandiosely, dismissed the students on my behalf.
At lunch time, none of my students returned. I waited a few minutes and then assumed that they must have found their way up there on their own. Another teacher and I who had the same lunch period went up together and found the library, which was above the space designated as the mosque. I wouldn't really call it a library exactly, since as of yet, there were no books. It would make a nice library eventually though, it was round and there were a lot of windows and a skylight in the ceiling and columns in the center that had more famous quotes on them. In the middle of all this there was a giant cake with the King's face on it. I think the piece I got was part of his shoulder. Girls were clumped together all around the room eating cake and laughing, some had dressed up for the promised contest for who had the best traditional dress. Unfortunately, my girls who had dressed up (and were, unbiasedly the best) had arrived late since they were doing their make-up and so weren't able to enter the competition. The biggest clump of girls was huddled around a tiny set of speakers in the back of the room. A few brave girls were even dancing to the music, even though dancing, and even music is technically haram or not allowed. Whoever thought that getting about 700 girls into one space, giving them all cake, having a contest and then returning them to their rooms would only last 10 minutes was crazy. I hung around for about 15 minutes then made my way back to class so I would be there when the students started filtering back down. Sure enough, the students did eventually make their way back down, and we managed to have half of an hour long class at least. The rest of the day went by quickly and was very uneventful.
That afternoon I went to tutor Joury as usual. The hot topic that day was how excited she was for the family's National Day celebration that evening. I was confused and asked why they weren't going to do it tomorrow on the actual National Day. She explained that you couldn't go out anywhere on National Day, it wasn't safe. I asked why, and got a sort of confused answer about stores being looted and drunk men in the streets. Her older sister filled me in. Women and children usually celebrated separately the day before. They would dress up, and dance with swords (the women and children danced with swords?!) and have pretend bedouin wedding celebrations. The men usually spent National Day in Bahrain or Dubai (the irony of spending a day designed to celebrate your nation, enjoying the freedoms of another seemed lost on them). The ones who couldn't get away often found ways to get drunk and drive down to the cornish to drive up and down waving flags and bursting out in sporadic dancing, yelling, and occasional getting out of control enough to loot stores. Apparently, they usually limited their looting to stores owned by non-Saudi's. I wondered how much of this was true, and how much of this was just the exaggerated fear of conservative Saudi families.
When tutoring ended, instead of taking just me home, Joury, her sister and her Mom were going to join me in the car and get dropped off at her Aunts house for the party. It was the first time since our original meeting in the mall that I had seen Jude and her mother fully cloaked and it was jarring. Inside their home, it was easy to forget where I was because it was just like spending time with any other family. With only women and close male relatives around, they were free to wear whatever they wanted. Now I was seeing just their eyes, and it was like arriving at a halloween party and not recognizing any of your friends because they were wearing masks. I got in next to Jude and Joury while we waited for her mom to lock up. Joury told me to slide over and I was confused. I thought her mom would sit in the front seat next to the driver. Then I realized that she wouldn't. After all, this driver was not her husband. So I slid over, and Joury sat halfway on her mom's lap and halfway on mine for the short trip to her Aunts house. I wished them a happy National Day as they got out, and half hoped they would invite me to join them. I would have loved to see dancing with swords, but to be honest, I was just as relieved to be heading home and was looking forward to sleeping in the next day.
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| View of National Day from my roof |
I did sleep in, and was tempted to try to go to the cornish to see all the "looting" action. Unfortunately, the roads had all been blocked off, possibly to help with crowd control. I had heard there would be fireworks around 10pm that night, so Princess and I took some plyers and managed to open the door to the roof, which wasn't locked, but didn't have a handle, so it was a challenge turning the mechanism and getting it open. We waited a while, and got to see all the buildings lit up in green for the occasion, but that was about all. There didn't even seem to be too much traffic. Granted, we were pretty far from the Cornish, but still, I was a little disappointed. A friend of ours sent us a video later of the traffic at the cornish, and it was pretty tame, and to be honest kind of lame. I had expected more.
If you want more, you can read what my students wrote about National Day at this website:
https://sites.google.com/site/saudinationaldayesg/
https://sites.google.com/site/saudinationaldayesg/
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