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.

Happy New Year!

Like Christmas, Saudies also don't celebrate the New Year, or birthdays.  This is particularly tragic for one of my students who's birthday happens to be New Year's Eve.  She told me excitedly on Wed. that it was her birthday and when I asked her if she had any plans, she told me no, that it was haram or forbidden to celebrate birthdays.  She looked so sad that I decided then and there that I would make her a cake.  I know what you are all thinking, me baking?  I must have burned the house down.  Don't worry, it was from a box, and there was no tragic cooking accident.  Ok, so there might have been a minor  cooking accident, but it wasn't tragic.  I was very carefully following the recipe on the back of the box, which told me to heat the oven to 180.  I remember thinking at the time that 180 seemed kind of low, but I figured I shouldn't try to deviate from the instructions since I only had one chance to make this a good cake.  I set my watch for 25 minutes later and waited.   When I went back to check it, it was still a liquidy mess.   That's when what you've all been thinking this whole time finally dawned on me.  The temperature they gave on the box was in Celsius, and the oven temperature was in Fahrenheit.  I turned up the heat, let it bake for another 20 minutes or so, and all was well. Except that when I got ready to leave for work, I left it on the table.

Luckily, I realized in time to buy some Twinkies at the corner store before I got to class.  When I arrived, she and I were the only two in class so far.  I told her about how I had baked a cake for her, and how I had forgotten it, so I bought a bunch of mini-cakes for everyone instead.  She looked confused.  Why teacher?  For you!  I said.  For your birthday.  She started laughing.  Oh, I forgot is was my birthday.  I told everyone, including you it was my birthday and tried to get them to have a party for me or something, but my husband, my friends, everyone, told me haram so I forgot all about it.  She laughed again and thanked me.  We ate the cakes at the end of class, and even though they were kind of stale, I think we all appreciated having a little something to celebrate.

I went straight from class to the New Zealand Embassy for a New Year's Eve party.  Since I didn't have time to go home and change, I had been wearing my fancy party dress all day, and no one knew any better.  It's times like these when abayas really come in handy.  The party was a masquerade ball, and so I decided to wear my crazy leopard print dress since it matched the gold and black mask I had bought at the shop a few doors down from my work.  I happened to see the party shop on my way to lunch one day and remembered I would need a mask for the party, so I stopped in.  It was a good thing I did too.  They were closing up the shop or moving it to another location or something, and since they were packing everything in boxes, they let me have the mask for super cheap just to save the effort of packing it.

So mask in hand, and pre-dressed, I made my way to the embassy in a taxi.  He was a very confident guy, and when I told him to take the south gate because that was the one I used the last time that was closer to the New Zealand Embassy, he told me the south gate had been closed since 3pm in anticipation of New Year's Parties at the embassies, and because there was increased security now because of ISIS.  He certainly knew his stuff.  Since he knew all that, I assumed he knew where the New Zealand embassy was.  He assumed that I knew where the New Zealand embassy was since I had a ticket to a party there.  Neither of us bothered to check in with the other about this, until after about the 10th roundabout inside the diplomatic quarter, he turned to me to ask where it was.   Luckily, there was an information panel that listed all the embassies, so we found that, and then were able to find the embassy.

Me & the ice-sculpture

It was crowded, maybe 300 people, and at least 3/4 of them had masks on.  It was sort of fun, but also sort of hard to see through the peepholes in the mask, and even harder to dance without it falling off and bouncing everywhere.  Most people gave up on their masks fairly early in the evening.  There was lots of food, and an ice-sculpture that said 2014 that was appropriately melting, though not really fast enough to be gone by midnight.  Someone had gone through the trouble of putting up Christmas lights that spelled out something Happy New Year.  After much debating, about what it might say; what, new, wally, whisper, we're here, a very smooshed 2014... we finaly consulted an embassy staff member who told us they had worked very hard on trying to get it to say "wish u a" Happy New Year, but that it all sort of ran together and the only part you could really read was Happy New Year.

People Watching

 There was lots of dancing, but the DJ was really hit or miss, so most of the time I sat out and enjoyed some quality people watching.   Since it's allowed to sell beverages at the embassies, there was some very entertaining people watching going on. I realized when I kept looking at the clock to see how long before midnight, not because I was excited for it to be midnight, but because I was excited to be going home, that I must be getting very old.  I used to work 12 hour days a lot and it never seemed to phase me.  Now, I just feel tired all the time.  Not even the promise of the next cliff-hanger episode of Breaking Bad appeals to me more than sleep lately.  And the music is really too loud for me.  I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but Saudi has turned me into an old woman.

The ice-sculpture meets an untimely death in the pool.

Which isn't to say I can't still have fun.  The guy who got me the ticket to the party is best friends with the deputy ambassador to New Zealand, so we were invited to the after party.  As tired as I was, the prospect of watching a bunch of diplomats jump into the pool was too promising to pass on.  I had been cold all night, temperatures dipping into the frigid 60s, and since the pool was not heated, this was pretty much equivalent to the polar dip for those of us acclimated to Saudi weather.  About a dozen guys (and me the only girl) stuck around for the after party.  They had all initially agreed to do it, but in the end, only 4 guys jumped in.  They might have changed their minds after the catering staff dumped the ice sculpture into the pool as the quickest and easiest method of getting rid of it.  The guys in the pool invented a new pool game.  Ice-burg tag.  The basic premise being to push the pieces of floating ice away from you and towards anyone else who is in the pool.  As fun as it was, I still had to work the next day, so when the Italian finance officer declared that it was now 2015 in Italy, I decided it was time to be heading home.

So, 2015.  It definitely doesn't feel like I've been here 8 months.  Sometimes it feels like 8 years, other times 8 weeks.   Who knows what's in store for me this year.  I could be heading home in a month or two.  I could make it all the way to the year mark.  I could stay till August.  But I'm making this resolution right now.  I will not be spending New Year's Eve in the Kingdom next year.  Inshalla.

Christmas in the Kingdom

I almost forgot about Christmas this year.  In any other country in the world, this wouldn't have been possible.  Christmas music and lights and decorations are starting earlier and earlier so that by Christmas, you are hard pressed to find anything that doesn't remind you of the holidays.  But here in Saudi, Christmas is more or less forbidden.  In 2012, twelve people were arrested for "plotting to celebrate Christmas".  And while I don't know for sure if there are any actual written laws against Christmas, the religious pressure keeps it pretty much under wraps.  There are no decorations, no holiday jingles on the radio or in the stores (for that matter, there is never any music in stores since listening to music in public is haram) and no lights or candy canes, not to mention the weather hovering in the mid to upper 70s.  I have not seen, heard, tasted, or smelled anything in the entire month of December that gave me any indication of the Holiday Season aside from the calender itself.

So maybe you can understand my surprise when I looked up one night while riding in a taxi and saw the kingdom tower lit up in green and red.  Normally, the lights on the tower change slowly in a rainbow pattern from red to yellow, to green, to turquoise, to blue, to purple and back to red.  But that night, the lights on the sky bridge were green, while the u shape in the middle was red.  I couldn't believe my eyes.   Of course, it could have been a coincidence.  Red and green are complimentary colors, so it could have just been an aesthetic thing, but there is something so fundamentally Christmas-y about red and green together that I couldn't help but think that someone somewhere was using this iconic Riyadh building to secretly wish the whole country Merry Christmas.  If so, it was a very short lived greeting card.  By the next night, the tower lights had been switched back to the regular rotating colors.

Christmas Contraband

Christmas Dinner

That wasn't my only Christmas surprise.  One of the things I've been most grateful for this year, and especially in the last three months since I moved to Riyadh, is the collection of friends I have been able to make.  Collectively, my friends gave me the best gift possible (short of going home), a wonderful Christmas Eve party.  One of them went around to different stores and found a tiny plastic Christmas tree and some ornaments on the black market.  Another friend who works at an embassy procured some candy canes.  Someone else had brought a Santa hat from the UK.  Another friend made tiny delicious quails for dinner, and I attempted to make my brother's famous twice baked potatoes and an apple pie. Together we gathered around that tiny fake tree, ate, talked, played cards and listened to Christmas songs from the internet.

At work the next day, I gathered with my new co-workers around a big traditional Saudi breakfast with humus and beans and bread and falafal.  No one mentioned any reason for the sudden generosity and impromptu get together, but I think we all noticed the calendar said December 25th. When we were finished and everyone was cleaning up and heading back to work, one of the Arabic editors leaned over and whispered a clearly carefully memorized phrase: Merry Christmas.  I gave him a huge smile and he smiled back, proud that he had shared this secret with me.  Later that night after class, one of my students hung around after the others had left and said, teacher, Merry Christmas.  I gave her a hug.  Those two greetings meant more to me than a lifetime of automatic holiday greetings from salesmen and clerks in the US.

It wasn't most the traditional of Christmas's, especially having to work, but I can't complain.  Maybe I missed all the build up to Christmas, the cold weather, the carols, the cards, the annoying advertisements.... but maybe I got something better.  Maybe when you have to look for it, when it isn't on every street corner, when you have to dare to celebrate, and weigh the consequences if you do, you think more about what it really means and what really matters.  Like winning at cards.

Cafés, Cables, and Caroline

Even though I didn't end up taking the FATE job, Caroline, the British woman who initially interviewed me kept in touch.  We were both westerners new to Riyadh, and it's nice to be able to talk to someone who is in the same boat as you are.

We decided to meet up on Friday for lunch.  Even though this sounds like a simple thing, it actually requires a lot of planning.  We both have to secure a driver.  Then we have to find a place with a family section so that we can eat there.  We settled on a mall near the Diplomatic Quarter where she lived, there was a nice Café she knew of there, and since I didn't know anywhere to go, I deferred to her judgement.

A series of unfortunate events guaranteed that our day wouldn't go as planed.  One of the problems was that I had asked them to install internet in the housing.  Actually this was a point of contention, since in the initial interview and a few times after that, they told me that internet would be included in the housing, and then when I pointed out that there wasn't any internet, they told me that I would have to pay for it.  When I pointed out that it was in the contract, they begrudgingly relented.  So initially they told me that they would come to install it Thursday night.  Thursday came and went and they didn't come.  Friday morning I went to ask about it, and they told me they would come after prayer around 1:30pm.  This was unfortunate, since Caroline and I had agreed to meet at 12pm, and it was probably 30 or 40 minutes away from my house, making lunch a tight squeeze.

I called Caroline to see if she wanted to reschedule, but since she had already booked a driver, we decided to just go for it.  After all, what were the chances that they would come at all, let alone come on time?  We figured we could chance it.

I hoped in a taxi and told him the name of the mall.  When we arrived, the place was deserted.  He asked me if I was sure, and I wasn't, but I paid him and went in anyway.  Friday mornings in Saudi are the quietest part of the week because Friday is the day of worship, so most people stay home with their families or go to the mosque to worship.  No one really goes out until after 4pm.  We sort of forgot to take this into account when we made our plans.

So I walked into the mall and it was completely empty and all the stores were closed.  I felt like I had just walked into an apocalypse movie.  I resisted the urge to call out, Hello?  Is anybody there?  I walked toward the escalator since Caroline had told me the Café was on the second floor.  I was walking slowly and cautiously, expecting someone to come out and tell me the mall was closed and I needed to leave.  It was eerily quiet.  Suddenly I heard a noise and I jumped three feet into the air.  It was just a man at the other end of the mall clearing his throat.  He was the only other living thing in the place, or so it seemed, and I didn't want to stick around to see if he was coming closer.  I took the escalator steps two at a time.  Going up an escalator when it's off is a weird enough experience on its own, but taking them two at a time with the feeling that someone is after you is really strange.  Logically, I knew I was being silly.   But you walk around a deserted mall alone and see if it doesn't jangle your nerves.

When I got to the second floor I relaxed a little.  Caroline would be there waiting for me at a Café and then it wouldn't be so strange.  The mall wasn't that big, just a long skinny rectangle.  I made my way to the far end to what looked like a coffee shop but turned out to sell candy.  When I made it all the way to one end with no Café and no Caroline, I started to worry again.  I headed to the other end of the floor, hoping there was a Café there.  It didn't take long to realize there wasn't at least not anything that was open.  I called Caroline.  She insisted she was there on the second floor waiting for me.  I told her I was on the second floor and didn't see her anywhere. Now, this was extra strange since there was literally no one around.  I suddenly got the feeling maybe I had gone to the wrong mall.  I confirmed with Caroline, "You are at the Granada Mall, right?" "Yup, she said.  Second floor.  I'm near a cafe with a green and white logo... I should be able to see you...."  Having already walked the whole length of the second floor, I knew there was no cafe with a green and white logo.  Something was wrong.  Suddenly, It came to me.  "Wait, you must mean the British second floor, right?, cause I'm on the American second floor.  I'll be right up."  I can't believe that I forgot the British have the strange habit of calling the first floor the ground floor, and the first floor the second floor and so on.  So Caroline had been waiting for me on the third floor the whole time.  Silly Brits.

Turns out, there wasn't really any rush. The cafe was closed and wouldn't open until 2pm.  We decided we could hang around in the mall for a little while, then head back to my place just in case the internet installers showed up.  I had some pasta I could make, or there was a shawarma place near my house.  I had never actually been there, but I figured it couldn't be so bad.   Besides, Caroline wanted to see how the other half lived, those of us not lucky enough to be in the Diplomatic Quarter.

When I showed her my apartment, she was quiet taken aback by my digs.  I could tell she was secretly jealous of my amazing furniture.  Before she could get over her initial shock, there was a knock on the door.  They had come to install the internet, and they were more or less on time.  We were both amazed.  We put our abayas back on and stood back to watch.  Three guys came in with a long spool of blue cable and a handful of tools.  This seemed much more complicated than was strictly necessary.   The quickest and probably cheapest internet solution was to buy a wireless router like they had installed at my old company.  Caroline and I speculated that they needed the cable because they were splicing in on someone else's internet.

They came into the room and spent a lot of time speculating on the best way to run the cable.  First they tried to snake it through the air conditioning unit itself into the outside.  Thankfully one of them had the sense to point out that it wasn't safe.  So instead, they pulled back the trim around the AC unit and threaded it through the considerable gap there.  Then one of them opened the window and leaned half way out feeding cable outside.  The third man ran downstairs to catch the cable from the outside and connect it to, who knows where.  All this went pretty smoothly, until they took the router out of the box and tried to actually connect it.

For reasons unknown, Saudi outlets are consistently inconsistent. Sometimes they are the large three pin plugs common in the rest of the Middle East, sometimes they are the two-pin European style, and other times they use American plugs.  The basic rule to follow seems to be that whatever plug style the thing you want to plug in is, the outlet will be incompatible.  I offered up my small stash of adapters.  I had a European to US, a US to Middle East, but not what we actually needed which was Middle East to European.  The three men looked at the plug situation and did what all men faced with an obstacle do.  They thought of the most difficult, complicated solution possible and decided to try it.  They were on the verge of cutting off one of the pins on the plug so that it would fit into another adapter which they would then fit into a third, and then finally plug it into the wall, when thankfully, one of the men stopped the guy.  He said some things in Arabic, and then left, presumably to buy the correct adaptor.

The two men and Caroline and I sat and stared at each other in uncomfortable silence for a while while we waited for the guy to return.  It didn't take long.  He brought the longest extension cord / power socket known to man, and thankfully, It had all three plug styles built in so it was guaranteed to work. With everything finally plugged in, it was time for the moment of truth.  We powered up my laptop and he typed in the password and just like that, I finally had internet!  Woo Hoo!

The guys tacked the trim around the AC unit back into place using the side of a wrench as a hammer.  Then they piled up all the extra cables and wires in a corner in an attempt to tidy up and left.

Caroline and I just looked at each other and laughed.  "Thank you for giving me a truly Saudi Experience." she said.  "When you live in the DQ with Embassy parties every weekend, you can forget."  I nodded.  "You'll have to invite me to one so I can see what it's like."  Sure thing, she said.  And we left to eat our long delayed meal at a Moraccan Restaurant with a nice view of the Kingdom tower.

When we parted ways, her climbing into her trusted drivers van, and me waiting for a random taxi to swing by, she told me how much she enjoyed seeing my neck of the woods.  And I'm sure she had.  But I'm also sure that the unspoken end of that sentence was, "but I'm happy they aren't my woods."

Getting to Know Riyadh

I spent the next day calling Suleiman and the dental and nursing school trying to arrange a visit so that I could see the classrooms, meet some of the teachers, and see the accommodations before agreeing to an offer.  Unfortunately, in typical Saudi style, they kept putting me off.  Tomorrow, inshallah.

I also spent time searching the internet for and applying to other jobs, most of the postings on the international job sites at the moment were all for Saudi.  Go figure.  But a funny thing happens when you are on the internet.  You start off doing one particular thing, and before long, you find yourself on Wikipedia reading about the origins of playing cards.  If there were an olympic sport in which competitors tried to distract a person from a single simple task in the least amount of time, Internet would take home the gold every time.

So I found myself on this website called Internations, which is a place where foreigners living abroad can interact.  I started out on their job board, but also noticed they had an events section and saw that there was going to be a trip to visit some salt flats the following week.  So I emailed the organizer and asked if I could join.  I figured, if I was going to be stuck here in Riyadh, I might as well see some of it while I'm here.  After all, I wasn't going to be able to get my exit visa until after Eid, in two weeks when government offices opened up again.

The organizer emailed me back, and because I wasn't a paying member, he said he might let me go, but wanted to meet me first.  I said that would be fine, and so we arranged to meet up that evening.  He was a Saudi guy, whose name, oddly enough, was Riyadh.  Apparently, it means garden, or green or something like that.  Maybe once long ago there was a small oasis here and so with all the green things growing they may have given it that name.  Now it's just endless tan concrete and dust. Anyway, Riyadh had a day job doing a number of different businesses, (kind of like Suleiman), but he moonlighted as a tourguide so he wanted to show me the city and take me to a traditional restaurant.  I didn't have the heart to tell him I had already been to one in Khobar, he seemed so excited to be giving me my first experience with real Saudi cooking.

He picked me up from my hotel, and the first thing he did was show me his official tour guide license from the government, so I would feel safe.  He told me not to worry, that if anyone stopped us or there was a checkpoint, this license allowed us to be together.  Normally, mixing is not allowed, and people who are found together without a marriage license can get in a lot of trouble.  Having lived in Khobar and Dammam where the regulations aren't as strict, and where I never saw any religious police, I had kind of forgotten how strict it was here.

As we drove, he pointed out some beautiful mansions built next to a mosque and explained that they were all empty.  A very rich man had built the mosque and the houses, with the idea that he could have all of his wives and extended family live there together with him.  But when he died, the family began to fight over his assets.  The fighting escalated to the point where none of them could stand the sight of any of the others, and so, they all moved out to avoid seeing each other.  The place is completely empty now.  What a shame.

I asked him about this problem that I had notices a lot in Saudi.  Saudi's seem to put a lot of stock in their families.  They are always saying family comes first, and the spend most weekends and holidays with extended family.  They constantly talk about how important family is and how much they love their family.  Sons and daughters make huge life changing decisions based on the will of the family.  And yet, as soon as you scratch the surface just a little bit, you uncover these bitter generations long fights and schisms within most families here.  Like most things here, the family tradition seems to be mostly about appearance.  People say they love their families and are happy with their family because that is what everyone expects to and wants to hear.   The messy parts, the part where cousins and aunts and uncles are cut off, the explosive arguments, all that is hidden.  And so long as it stays hidden, it isn't really a problem.  I'm not even sure if they themselves see the contradiction in this.  I think that somehow they have come to believe that public and private are so separated as to have almost nothing to do with one another.

I've come to think of the abaya as sort of a huge metaphor for Saudi society.  When you are covered, you are what everyone wants you to be.  You are a pious woman.  You are a perfect woman.  No one can see any of your flaws.  You represent the best of Islam.  No matter if underneath, you are scandalously breaking every rule.  To the outside world, you are perfect.  The same goes for the society as a whole.  Under a cloak of uniformity and strict social rules, to the outside observer, all is proper.  You have a segregated islamic society that works well.  No one drinks, no one meets anyone of the opposite sex unless they are related or married, everyone observes prayer times and dresses appropriately.  No matter if underneath all this, there is rampant homosexuality, drugs, alcohol, sexes mixing, and corruption.  So long as none of it shows, where is the problem?

Our food, served on the floor.

We arrived at the restaurant which looked very similar to the one in Khobar, minus the cars.  This one had an open courtyard in the middle of the restaurant with a working old-fashioned water pump.  Our private dining area was separated from the others by traditional bedouin tents, and like before, we sat on the floor to eat.  The food was mostly the same, although there was a new dish that was kind of like porridge, only salty.  I can't say I cared for it much.  We also had dessert, which were these lovely wheat pancakes with honey.  I can't remember the traditional name for them, but I liked them a lot.

Sitting in an old style living room

After dinner we wandered around the place some, peaking into different rooms to see how they were decorated.  It was strange to see very traditional items, like camel saddles, and pottery, and water canteens made of sheep bladders, in the same room as relics from the recent past, like radios from the 40's.  It was like a museum had mixed up it's world war two era collection with the Arabian nomad collection.  But then, I suppose that when the oil was discovered in Saudi around that time, that is probably what it would have been like.  So maybe it wasn't so strange after all.

The watermill in the courtyard

He drove me back to my hotel and told me I had passed the test.  I would be allowed to go on the Salt Flats trip even though I wasn't a paying member.  I thanked him and told him I would see him on Tuesday for the trip.  Not a bad way to spend a random Wednesday night.  Thank you internet, I guess sometimes, distractions can be worth it!

Rayatona

Mohammad put me up for the night in Rayatona, which was actually the place I stayed at when I first arrived in Saudi back in April.  I was a little disappointed not to be back in the nice hotel, but any place is better than no place so I couldn't complain.  The room they had available was on the forth floor.  It had two twin beds, and was a lot smaller than than the room I had before.  The receptionist showed it to me and asked if it was ok.  He looked dubious.  I got the feeling that this was the worst room, and that usually people say it is too small and ask for something else.  Ever the optimist, I was hoping it would be my only night here, so I didn't mind.  In at least one way it was better than the nicer hotel because the internet connection was really strong.

I asked if there were any small shops within walking distance.  I wanted to buy some food for dinner.  He told me there was nothing, but that I could go on the shopping trip at 7:30.  It was only 4pm now.  I was feeling sick and tired, but more than anything I was hungry.  I didn't want to bother going on the shopping trip, but I knew I needed some food for tonight and in the morning.  So I settled in and wrote some emails letting my old company know I was going to be stuck here another night.  I had planned to take a small nap, but I don't know what happens to the time when you have good internet. The next thing I knew it was 7:25 and I raced down to the lobby so as not to miss the bus.  There were only three of us on the shopping trip that night.  There was a guy who was really talkative, and when he found out I was here for my final exit, he was full of ideas for other places I could get jobs.  I wished I could just tell him that I was all set already, but the less anyone else knows the better, the walls have ears apparently and I just nodded politely.   Most people covet spots at PNU, but I was not interested. He seemed shocked when I told him that I wouldn't want to live in Riyadh.  I knew I was lucky to have been sent to Dammam. Maybe everyone just settles in and enjoys wherever they have been sent.  Maybe I would have liked Riyadh as much as I liked Dammam, but I kind of doubt it. The girl on the bus was a math teacher, and she didn't speak much English, but he tried to help her too.  He wanted to give her an algebra book his daughter didn't need anymore.  I will say one thing, most people I have met here have been really helpful and generous.

As we pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, I saw a shwarma shop.  I was tempted to ask to be let off the bus, get a shwarma and just go home, but I wasn't sure if it was a men only shop, and we were already on our way.  Still, I was mad that the receptionist guy hadn't mentioned this place which was only a block away when I asked about shops to get food nearby.  There is such a culture of not walking and driving everywhere in this country, especially for women, I guess he just assumed I wouldn't want to walk anywhere.

When we got to the mall it was prayer time.  Luckily the big grocery store was still open, you just couldn't check out until after prayer.  I took as long as I could in the store.  The bus wouldn't pick us up until 9:30 so I had plenty of time to kill.  Still, when you are only buying three or four things, it really doesn't take long no matter how much you muck about.  I bought three oranges, an onion, some pasta, tomato paste, chicken stock, powdered soup mix, salt (this would be my forth giant thing of salt- good thing it costs less than 50 cents) a tin of canned lunch meat, and as I was checking out I spotted some throat lozenges that would save me a trip to the pharmacy. I hoped I wouldn't be here beyond tomorrow, but if I was, these things could easily last me at least 4-6 meals.  I didn't want to have to go on another one of these shopping trips if I could help it.

Having killed as much time as I felt it was possible to kill, I walked back to the pick up spot.  It was only 8:30 and we still had an hour before we left.  I found our driver laying out on a tiny patch of grass on a little island in the middle of the parking lot.  I asked him to let me onto the bus.  He went to turn the whole bus on to have the AC running, but I didn't want the AC to run for a whole hour, and besides, it wasn't that hot out today, maybe low 90s, ans since the sun had gone down, it wasn't bad at all.  So I went to the very back of the bus and laid down to "read" but was asleep probably within 5 minutes.  I woke up when the bus was turned on and started to move, and I heard the two people I had come with get on the bus.  The driver was pulling out and the woman asked the man about me, if they should wait.  Obviously they hadn't seen me laying down in the back of the bus. " Nah," he said, "she knew the bus left at 9:30, she will get a taxi back."  Good to know, I thought.  In Dammam, the bus would have at least waited 5 or 10 minutes past 9:30.  I thought about it and realized that if I had been left behind, I had absolutely no idea where the hotel I was staying at was, and wouldn't have known how to tell the driver to get there.  I would be sure to ask when I got back.

However, when we got back, we walked into a shouting match between one of the women and one of the security guards that made me forget all about directions.  "Stop spying on us!" she was shouting.  The general desk manager rushed in from his smoking break at the same time we came in.  He asked her what the problem was, and as I skirted around them in the lobby and headed up the stairs I could hear her saying that this man was always watching them, seeing when they came in and out and with whom and would knock on their doors at all times of the day and night just to see if they were in.  She was very upset, but the guard she was accusing, a very small young man, seemed unfazed.  I'm sure he felt he was doing his job, but I'm also sure he was doing it with more gusto and attention than was strictly necessary.

When I got to the room, I set down the groceries and started looking in the cabinets to prepare to cook.  I wish I had looked sooner.  There was one pot with no handle, and about half a dozen glasses, a cheese grater, electric kettle and two small tea saucers.  That was it.  There was no silverware, no frying pan, nothing.  I figured I could make do with just the pot, but at the very least, I would need a spoon.  Sighing, but grateful I hadn't yet taken my abaya off, I went back downstairs.  The girl was still upset and the general manager was trying to calm her down, saying they had security for safety reasons.  She countered, "Safety?  Who is going to keep us safe from him?  He is a pervert.  He isn't trying to protect us he is stalking us.  Anyway, I don't need protecting.  I don't need this mattawa want to be, judging everything I do!"  I hated to interrupt, but I really just wanted the spoon so I could cook my dinner and go to bed.  I tried to ask one of the guys in the crowd that had by now gathered around.  He called another guy over who ran off somewhere, presumably to get a spoon.  The general manager guy, who was clearly uncomfortable and looking for a way out of the situation spotted me out of the corner of his eye and took his chance.  "What do you need?  Can I help you?"  I explained that someone was already helping me, and he looked absolutely crestfallen.  Reluctantly he turned back to the girl who was so deep in her rant she had barely noticed he had turned away.  The guy returned with the spoon, and very thoughtfully, he had also brought me some forks and a knife, which was good thinking since I didn't have those either.

The great Spam disaster.  Notice How the fork is now horribly bent?

I went back upstairs and settled in to begin cooking.  I had bought the chicken "spam" on a whim, and because I thought fried spam would taste really good at the moment.  I knew it would be harder without a frying pan, but I figured the bottom of the pot could work too.  So I went about opening the can, which was kind of like a sardine can crossed with a pack of gum in terms of opening devices.  There was a little handle thing attached to a strip of metal that would in theory easily roll up and leave the top open to pull away.  The thing is, they had attached it at a really weird angle because of the handle at the end of this metal stick, it was really hard to get a good angle and after only one and a half turns, the metal broke off.  I was so frustrated.  At this point, I probably should have given up and made chicken soup instead with the noodles and chicken broth I brought.  But, stubborn girl that I am, I would not give up.  I declared war on this lousy can of tinned meat.  I attacked it vigorously with a knife and after 10 minutes or so (it was a very dull knife) I managed to pry loose another tiny section of the tin strip that supposedly easily peeled away.  It occurred to me at this point that it was possible I could use this new piece and thread it through the handle again and try my luck at rolling it open again.  I thought it was a genius move.  It was, except that it made me realize that earlier, I had mad a stupid move.  The handle is facing the inside of the tin for packing and shipping purposes, but when you go to open it, you should remove it, turn it around, re-thread the needle, and then, wallah, there is free movement of the handle part so that the stick remains parallel to the can and can more easily wind up the strip around the top of the can.  I made it 3/4 of the way around before it broke.  At this point I was so hungry I didn't even care.  I grabbed the spoon and a fork and went to town, scooping out what I could in the limited opening I had made.  

I wish I could say that after all that effort, it was delicious.  Unfortunately, when I tried to cook it, it stuck miserably to the bottom of the pan and was somehow both burnt on the edges and cold in the middle.  I am the worst cook ever.  So in the end, I made the chicken soup after all.  But by the time I made it and ate it, it was well after 11pm.  So much for an early night.  At least with the throat lozenges, my sore throat felt a little better.  So I guess it wasn't a total waste of a shopping trip.

Training at the Hotel

Since the internet and toilets at the College are still not up and running yet, the next two days of training will be held at the Double Tree Hotel so that we can learn how to use the online attendance and grade system. Its a nice change. The professional development we had at the University of Dammam had been in a freezing room on the mens side of the campus, and we were lucky if there was water around to drink.

Waterfall display in the Lobby of the Double Tree Hotel

When we arrived we were ushered up to the top floor by very friendly hotel employees. Since it was only six stories, and because there was a huge line for the elevators, I asked if he could show me to the stairs. He seemed surprised and told me again it was on the sixth floor. I told him I knew that and he just shook his head but led the way. Once we reached the stairs I expected him to carry on with his duty, but instead he insisted on going up with me to make sure I would find it. I thought that was a bit strange since in my experience stairs only went in one direction and didn't offer many opportunities for getting lost while climbing them, but I figured it was just really excellent hospitality. As it turns out, he was right. There is no hallway connecting the rooms on the sixth floor to the conference area on the sixth floor, so you actually have to leave the stairs on the fifth floor, walk around to the middle of the hotel and then take the elevator up one flight of stairs to the sixth floor. Now I felt kind of bad for making him climb all those stairs. Who knows though, maybe he needed the exercise as much as I did.

If I didn't need it before, I certainly needed it after I got to the room. They had provided us with an amazing spread of coffee, tea, fruit juice, and a smorgasbord of delicious breakfast desserts. It was incredible. I had a cheesecake and a croissant and I would have had more if I could have gotten up from the training table without anyone noticing what a pig I was. We started the session by getting in groups to come up with three things we thought the company had done well so far and three things that hadn't gone so well. We had kind of a variety of experiences in our group. One girl, who like me was coming to the Khobar Female College (KFC) from her old company had sent a lot of emails and called many times to find out where she would be staying when she finally arrived in Khobar, but never got any response and no one met her at the airport. Just when she was deciding maybe she should stick with her old employer, she got a phone call and was sent to the right place, but still, it was a nerve-wracking experience and one that worried me, because it was just the kind of thing my old company would have done, in fact, did do to me. The other woman had the opposite experience. They met her coming off the plain in Bahrain, got her all set up in the hotel, worked out all the visa stuff and then brought her into Saudi without a single problem. The one thing we could all agree on was that there were too many teaching hours and not enough planning time and that the curriculum should have been developed prior to our arrival, and that having no internet after we had been told there would be was kind of a skunk move. We also all agreed that the accommodation was wonderful and that our IT lady, Fozia, was amazing and really knew her stuff, and that what KFC was trying to do with raising the standards for women's education was admirable.  Most groups had similar complaints, but we didn't get all the way around the table when the general manager arrived.

He wanted to just give a quick hello, and a background on the company, which is a British organization that focuses on job training programs and welfare to work systems in the UK.  They are apparently very successful there and are hoping the model will work equally well in Saudi.  He explained that the underlying motivation for the Saudization project is ultimately economical, but that there are social interests here too.  He also said that the company is not non-profit, and they are paid based on student outcomes, which, unfortunately are measured 90% by attendance and only 10% by student outcomes.  He kept it up beat, and focused on the difference we would be making in the lives of the women we would teach, and the future generations they would raise.  Underneath it though, it was clear the focus was ultimately on attendance.  I was starting to get the sinking feeling that at the end of the day, all the rhetoric about engaging students and dynamic teaching was a secondary hopeful outcome, and that attendance was really all they cared about.  We were being hired to be glorified babysitters, and if some learning happened to happen in the meantime?  Great.

After the general manager spoke, we heard from the quality manager.  She talked about the quarterly observations we would have, the random "learning walk" observations that would be drop in for 5 minutes or so, and the annual institutional review.  I was actually quiet happy about the observations.  I have not been officially observed in a long time, and I would personally welcome the feedback.  Most of the other teachers weren't happy about it, and I can see how it would be scary and unfair if the observations led to teacher dismissal.  The process she outlined for us was that if there were areas for improvement you would be asked to do professional development and make a plan for improvement and re-observed after a month.  I think if they stick to this plan, and give you both the time and resources to improve, the observations can only be a good thing.  I wondered though if these observations were like our lesson planning time.... something they wanted to do and do well, but that they hadn't sufficiently planned for.  There were 32 teachers, and one person doing the observations who also happens to be the vice principal and head of student affairs, and we were all supposed to be observed once a month.  I'm not sure when she is going to fit this all in.

After this we had lunch.  It was a buffet set up on the first floor of the hotel and it was amazing.  There was so much food and it was all so good.  I stuffed myself, and probably would have eaten more If there had been more time.  The waiters even came around with warm chocolate chip cookies. The service was definitely outstanding.  I found myself wishing we could just remain perpetually in training at this hotel.  I could get used to fast internet, snacks, buffet lunches and friendly staff.  I didn't even mind sitting through the session when there was tea and coffee available.

We ended the day by trying out the online system for attendance.  I was anxious to work with this database and find out what it was capable of doing.  It turns out, it really just captures attendance and weekly test scores and that is about it.  It didn't seem particularly user friendly.  I was hoping I could use this system for everything, and that the students would be able to check their own grades and attendance through this system, but they will not be able to access it.  It looks like I will need to use a free online learning portal for my classroom purposes after all.  Which is actually ok because I had already started to make one for my University of Dammam classes, so it is already partially done anyway, and I can just re-use it.

Too soon, the day was over and we all pilled back onto the bus.  It wasn't so hard to do knowing we would be back at the hotel tomorrow for more training... I was really looking forward to some more hot chocolate chip cookies.

Corner Store Grocery Guy

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.

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?