Girls Night

If there is one thing I've done here that I can be proud of, it would be this:  I indirectly brought some weekly joy into the lives of some Saudi Women.

When I first started teaching at the institute in the evenings, my students had been studying together as a group for 6 weeks already with another teacher, but as I was struggling to learn and remember all their names, it became clear to me that they didn't know each other's names either.  You might ask how its possible to be with the same group of people every night for six weeks and not know their names, but the sad truth is that classes are called lectures here for a reason.  Many of them were doing group and pair work for the first time with me.

Once they started to get to know each by mixing in groups, the dynamic of the class changed.  On the one hand, there was a lot more side chatting during class.  On the other hand, they rushed to help each other understand, and challenged each other more in games in class with light-hearted teasing.  They all felt more confident speaking up and personalities began to emerge.  They were the same girls who on the first day had been quit  and reserved, but now they were loud and carefree and couldn't wait to talk in class.  The transformation was amazing to watch.

Unbeknownst to me, this transformation wasn't solely the result of my amazing class activities as I first thought.  Mid-way through course, one of the women had invited all of them to her house after class on Thursday (our Friday) and ever since then it has become a weekly event.  Each week, a different woman would hosts the class at her house.  After they had been doing this for a month or so, they invited me to come along.  For some reason it always seemed to happen that I was either leaving for Dammam on the weekend, or because it was the holidays, having parties at the embassy, or having friends visit.  Anyway, this Thursday I finally made it to the girl's night.

The class itself had dwindled from the original 10 or so members down to only 4,  many of the girls had decided not to continue for the second six weeks because of exams at the high school, or a change in work schedule, or because their maid quit.  But they all still managed to make it to the weekly party on Thursday.  So it was kind of like a mini-reunion for me.  I got to see a lot of the students that had stopped coming.

I was driven to the house after class by Wesam, a 26 year old who is married with two kids.  Her son who is two and a half, came with her father to pick us up and drive us to Mona's house.  He sat in the front seat with no car seat, and spent the whole ride hanging out the window.  Several times, I was worried he might fall out, but Wesam just grabbed for his hoodie a few times without even pausing in conversation.  It is very normal to see kids with no car seats, often standing up or sitting awkwardly in their mother's laps while driving.   The kingdom has the highest rates of traffic accidents in the world, and so it is somewhat shocking that the use of seat belts and proper child seats is so uncommon. Thankfully, it was a short trip.

Mona's Grandma's Pancake Recipe:
Wheat flour, water, salt, and
 black sesame seeds

Wesam and I were the first from class to arrive.  Mona, who used to attend with her daughter, was busy making food in the kitchen.  She wanted to show me her grandmother's recipe for savory pancakes, and the Indian food she was cooking.  She explained that her Somalian maid had left to make more money with some other family, so she had taken over the housework, which was extra hard since her son was home on a visit from California where he is in school.   "He misses my cooking so I have to cook for him three times a day."  Next she introduced me to her mother, a tiny woman who was clearly old, but also very energetic.  She had been to America nearly 20 years ago, and would surprise me occasionally throughout the night by saying a random phrase in English.

The chicken coop, and busy rooster

Next I got the grand tour.  The house was huge.  There were three stories, and the first floor was just the kitchen and three different living rooms, the second floor had bedrooms, and the third floor was also bedrooms, but for pets. They had about 20 cats and maybe 100 birds.  There were bird cages everywhere.  There were parrots and canaries and finches and outside in the backyard, a chicken coop.  The grandmother took me outside to have a look at them.  They were all hanging out on a well.  She pointed out the only rooster among so many hens and said,  "man very busy." and then laughed while giving me a knowing look.

On the other side of the house was a separate entrance just for men.  It was much fancier than the door I had come through and in this garden there was a permanent outdoor tent.  She explained that this was the "man cave" for her husband and two boys.  It was fully carpeted and had the traditional pillows for leaning inside the tent.  It also had a large flat screen TV and good speakers.  There was also a fire place - not sure if it worked- but there were a lot of tea pots for Arabic coffee on the mantle ready to go.  She told me that the girls had wanted to have our night out here, but because of a sudden cold snap, we would stay inside.

Inside again she showed me another living room, this one just for men, but it was in the process of being re-decorated, so it was kind of a mess.  They had just finished redecorating the bathroom, which she told me her husband had designed.  I could tell by the ways she said it that she didn't really approve.  It had vertical rows of black tiles.  Each row had a different pattern and after ever third row or so, there were several rows of white tiles.  The effect was something like a prison since the vertical black tiles, even though they were very wide tiles, kind of seemed like bars.

Mona's 3 in 1 living room

There was a third living room that she didn't take me to see, which was just behind the kitchen and very small.  This one was just for family.   Finally, we were back at the living room with the rest of the girls.  It was so big, it was actually like three living rooms in one.  Or maybe it just felt that way because there were three very different sets of furniture, one on each wall.  There was one very modern looking box - like set of couches and love-seats in black, white and pink stripes.  On the opposite wall were antique looking chairs and sofas in pea green and gold.  Next to them was a giant purple sofa and foot stool.

Mini-sweet sambosa's

During the course of the night, we would rotate between all these areas depending on the activity.  For the initial round of Arabic coffee and sweets, we sat in the pea-green couch area.  By now, two more of my students, sisters, had arrived with their mother and younger sister.  They were originally from Syria, but only the oldest daughter had been born there, the rest had been raised in Saudi, and up until last year, they had gone back to Syria every summer to visit friends and family.  One of Mona's two daughters brought the younger sister (I think she was about 7 years old) a present - red earrings and a puzzle.  She was delighted and ran to put the earrings in right away.  When she came back, she started to play with the puzzle.  she opened the box, then took one piece out, looked at it, put it back, and took out another.  She was holding the piece up, and looked at it sideways and then looked at the picture on the box.  She put the puzzle piece on top of the spot in the picture it should go, smiled, and triumphantly returned the piece to the box.  It was clear she had never done a puzzle before.

Since I couldn't really understand the conversation happening around me anyway, I took the puzzle and the girl over to a coffee table, and showed her how to start by looking for the edges.  Once we got the boarder in place, and I felt she had a handle on finding pieces to fill it in, I got back up to rejoin the adults.  She got up to and followed me back to the couch.  She didn't say anything, just waited patiently while I greeted two other students (also sisters) who had arrived.  Even though their father was Saudi, their mother, who also came, was Egyptian.  We talked briefly, but since their mother didn't speak English, it was a pretty short conversation.  The little girls stuck to my side and looked at me patiently.  So I asked if she wanted me to help her finish the puzzle and she nodded, so I went back to the kiddie table and very happily helped her finish the puzzle.

Turkish Coffee

By then, more guests had arrived, so we switched to the black and white and pink area, so we had more places to sit.  We had more sweets, and Turkish coffee was brought around.  Inevitably, the conversation turned to men.  They gave Fatimah, who is 30 and not yet married a hard time, and she stood her ground saying she would not marry a Saudi.  She was clearly a woman determined to follow her own course, and had several tattoos.  One began behind her ear and traced her hairline down her neck.  In class, I had only ever been able to read the first part: "I am not an option."  Now, for the first time I could read the rest: "Choose me or f*#&ing loose me."  More than once I had wondered how and where a Saudi woman would go to get a tattoo, but then she must have gotten it on one of her trips to Egypt to visit her mother's family.

Then it was my turn to be grilled, and suddenly everyone had a son or a cousin who they wanted to introduce me to.  I declined politely, insisting that I was very happy to be single, and joking that I would end up killing any man I married since I am such a bad cook.  The grandmother offered through translation to let me live with her.  She would teach me everything she knew in the kitchen.  She said she was lonely since her husband died and she had a huge big house and no one to share it with.  I laughed, but was secretely wondering if it was a geniuine offer.  Depending on how much housing was going to cost, it wouldn't be such a bad deal.  She wouldn't be lonely, I'd have low rent, and cooking lessons to boot!

Preparing the Shisha

Someone hooked up their phone to the speakers, which were remarkably loud, and a few girls started dancing.  Another set of girls worked on preparing the shisha.  We migrated again back to the pea colored couches where there was more room for dancing.  My shyest student, Maria, was suddenly up and dancing, shaking her hips in ways even Shakira hasn't mastered.  I was flabbergasted.  Song after song, these girls got up and danced, sometimes the dances were crazy, made up from different moves they had seen in western music videos.  Sometimes they were traditional dances done in a circle while holding hands (I was pretty good at these).  And sometimes they were strangely erotic, with lots of shaking of hips and breasts.  I was decidedly terrible at these, despite the lessons the girls tried to give me.  Even the grandmother got into it, shouting "shake that ass" at one point.  I was so surprised by that I nearly fell over. Thankfully, someone came around with tea, so I grabbed a cup, grateful for the excuse to leave the dance floor.

Dinner is served

When I emptied my plate, someone
would fill it again, even if I insisted
I was full.

Around 11pm, we were called in to have dinner.  Dinner!?  There was something called Mashkhul, which is a rice and meat dish similar to Khobsa.  There was Tabula salad, there was seafood soup, there was the Indian food Mona had made, there was a salad of yogurt and cucumbers and dill, and there were even pickles.  It was a huge feast.  The younger women offered drinks while the older women dished out huge helpings no matter how much you protested that you didn't need that much. One of the most brilliant customs I've come across in Saudi is the use of disposable plastic sheets as table cloths.  When we were all finished eating, the ladies simply began scrapping all the leftovers off of the plates onto the table.  This saves the use of a garbage disposal and makes washing the dishes easy.  When all the plates and dishes are cleared from the table, then you just fold up the table cloth with all of the scraps of food inside and throw it away, or in this case, toss it out to the chickens.

Tea served in fancy cups

Cleaning up was sort of a group effort, we all pitched in since Mona's maid was gone.  Mona herself left early to go and stay the night with her husband in the hospital.  He had some blood clots in his brain, and they were monitoring him.  He had been in the hospital for nearly a week now, and they were trying to decide on weather or not to do surgery.  Her two daughters stayed behind to continue playing host.  We had one more round of hot drinks, This time ginger and hot water.    Since I normally just take taxi's and you weren't going to find a taxi on the side residential streets especially at this time of night, one of the girls offered me her driver.  So he came and picked me up, and off we went.  I don't know how much longer the other women stayed after I left, but it was clear that no one was in a hurry to leave.

I could understand why.  I was lucky enough to have an active social life among expats, so I hadn't felt the same isolation these women must feel.  Salma, one of my students once tried to explain to me why their Thursday nights were so important.  "During the week," she said, "I feel like this (she curled her hands up into fists and and brought them to her chest), "Then its Thursday, and we laugh an dance and talk, and everything goes away.  I feel like this." (and she threw her arms open wide).

Even though most of the time I hadn't been able to follow the conversation, the dancing and laughing and eating had made me feel like I was part of the group.  It was the first time I had truly felt welcome in Saudi Arabia, and I agreed with Salma.  My arms were now open wide, ready to experience and embrace whatever came my way next.