Curiosities
Marhaba!
Since I have been in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia I have observed a few things that strike my Western sensibilities as particularly odd, or which raise some questions for which I have no answer.
For example, why are there hundreds upon hundreds of jars of cream cheese spread on the shelves of every supermarket in the Kingdom? Now, I like my cream cheese as much as the next guy does, particularly on a nicely toasted onion bagel; but the Saudis carry this pre-occupation to an extreme. There are around ten different brands at various locations scattered throughout the store. In the dairy section, in some stores, you see jars of the stuff occupying shelves on both sides of the aisle – for the complete aisle, four or five shelves high, with a basin for more beneath the shelves! If cold cream cheese spread isn’t to your liking, you find not only jars of it on the regular grocery aisle, but also cans of it. You cannot escape the stuff! Business being business, the stores must be selling the stuff. But, really, how much cream cheese can one nation consume?
What does the mama camel say to the badly behaved teenaged camel? “You better behave, Alif, or I’m going to send you to the butcher’s shop.” Yep, camel meat provides the Saudi Arabian shopper with another alternative to the ubiquitous beef, chicken, and lamb. Serving the same complementary role as veal and turkey, camel shoulders may be bought, as may camel soup bones and camel livers. Mmmmm…now, why don’t they throw that into the mix on the next Iron Chef America?
Usually when I’d see a tanker truck in the United States, I’d give it wide berth. I could easily figure I was looking at a fuel tanker, or a tanker filled with ammonia nitrate, or occasionally a tanker containing milk. Want to guess what’s in the vast majority of tanker trucks in Riyadh? That’s right – Water! Saudi Arabia has cornered the market on the desalinization of seawater, and they truck that water into the central areas of the country by the truckload (now, wasn’t that redundant). Almost every building in Riyadh, not unlike New York City, has a water tank atop it. The ones in NYC are a bit more picturesque, but the more utilitarian versions (they remind me of propane tanks), provide drinking and bathroom water for nearly four million people. That’s not entirely accurate. There are some of the larger buildings (and this compound) that have huge underground tanks to serve their customers. A lot of folks don’t want to drink the desalinized water for fear of kidney stones (one of the rumors, which I don’t know if it’s true or not, that flows through the expat community). So, most of us (blame it on my time in Southern California) buy bottled water, which is inexpensive and is supposed to come from wells. Who knows? Maybe I’m paying extra for desalinized water.
I once thought that bidets were the property of Europe, but I was wrong. There’s a bidet in my very apartment, and at work they have these shower hose devices with focused nozzles for a very narrow stream. Used toilet paper, which is used to dry oneself rather than in the manner an American might expect, is not supposed to be thrown into the toilet and flushed. This might cause a blockage in the septic system. There are nice little trashcans for the collection of said used paper product. This situation is not particular to my place of work. These same hoses with their narrow, focused streams are present even in shopping mall restrooms. Of course, being me, I just do it the way I’ve always done it and call it a wash. A wash. Get it? Sometimes I just kill myself.
Speaking of paper products, what passes for paper towels in restrooms are more reminiscent of bad toilet paper (the cheap, one-ply sandpaper stuff) than the Bounty that is quicker at picking up than Viva!. While a few restrooms have something resembling the brown tri-fold, most use the much thinner version. Even in restaurants, the napkins are much more akin to a facial tissue than to a napkin. Again, there are exceptions, but not a lot. Of course, in a mostly treeless land, paper products are probably going to be expensive to make or import, resulting in the one thing at which humans are masters – adaptation.
Guys…switching to television for a moment, ever wonder if a commercial for feminine napkins – you know the kind where two women, or maybe a mother and daughter, discuss the advantages of one brand versus another – could be improved by seeing it in a different language, say Hindi? Just so you don’t have to trouble yourself with such an experiment, the answer is, No.
Well, that’s it for This Week In The Kingdom. In our next installment, we will discuss that most daring of thrillseeking activities, Driving In Riyadh!!
Ma’asalama.
Copyright, Greg Hubbard, 2006.
The Issue of Women
Marhaba!
Let me begin this particular post by saying that I am only reporting what I’ve seen with my own eyes. Anything that is speculation is stated as such. I am neither endorsing nor criticizing what I’ve seen, simply putting my observations to print.
One thing I want to make perfectly clear. The life of a woman in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is not equivalent to the life of a woman under the Taliban in Afghanistan. Women work, if they choose. Those with children often choose not to do so. Women own businesses in the KSA, and many are very successful and very wealthy. The money that a woman acquires by her own efforts belongs strictly to her and cannot be claimed by the husband. Women can own property, and they have full rights of inheritance, which cannot be claimed by the husband. The husband, however, has the responsibility to provide for all aspects of the home life and well being of the family. The wife is responsible for maintaining an orderly and efficient household. I am told, and this is hearsay, that the women run the house, and it’s a mistake to forget it. There is universal education for women, and it is expected that a man will do his utmost to send his daughters to University.
On the other hand, the life of a woman in KSA is not the same as a woman in the West or many Asian countries, or even in other Islamic nations. Women must wear a black abaya when they go out in public. This garment covers a woman from the neck to her feet. Islamic women, in general, wear scarves to cover their heads, and it is the custom for the women in KSA to wear veils. Women do not participate in politics. Women in KSA are not allowed to drive cars, nor are they allowed to converse with men outside their family without a proper chaperone. When they do work, they are only supposed to work and deal with women. There are exceptions, but few. I was reading an article about several women who had entered the journalism profession, and one of the difficulties they had was in interviewing men. Public interviews cannot occur, so they have to be creative in this regard.
King Abdullah has expended quite a bit of political capital with regard to expanding available professions for women. He wants to make it easier for women to work in professions they find useful. However, he has met a great deal of opposition from conservative lay Islamic leaders, as well as from the religious Wahabi clan who govern Islamic life from a religious perspective in KSA. According to a former expatriate (or more commonly, expat) with whom I spent an afternoon prior to coming over here, the most socially liberal among Saudis tends to be members of the Royal Family. I have seen nothing to dispel that theory – though there is a high degree of economic disconnect, but that’s a different post.
Women are not allowed to be in closed spaces with men. Even in the home, according to what I’ve read, women may only interface with men not of her family under extremely strict conditions and with the aid of a chaperone. Some of this seclusion dates back to the times of the nomadic lives of the Arabs, and are not necessarily, solely the result of the conquering Islamic religion. Islam does play the primary role in this, however. Sexual temptation of men – therefore, keeping them from their devotion to God – is seen as something to be avoided at all costs.
Interestingly, there are still religious groups in the United States that compel very conservative dress among its members. The Amish come to mind most quickly; however, there are Holiness sects of the Pentecostal denominations that also compel dress not dissimilar to those retained in KSA.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind here, too. KSA is a theocratic monarchy, not a democracy. The King must have the assistance of the clerics to get things done. The ruling Saud family made a deal with the ruling religious family, the Wahabis, in an effort to secure a stable kingdom. In return for ensuring that there was no religious fomented insurrection, the Saud family agreed to implement Sharia (Islamic law) and to rule as an Islamic state. With the exception of the Ottoman invasion, the Saud family has ruled since the 1700s. Also, the two most holy sites in the Islamic religion are located in the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina, and part of the King’s full title states that he is the defender of the two holy mosques. Riyadh, the capital, is the most conservative of the cities in KSA, with muttawas roaming the streets to correct the impious. Other cities, from what I’ve been told, Jeddah being a prime example, are nowhere near as conservative as in Riyadh. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that Muslims tend to be pretty conservative anyway.
Of note, too, the idea of conservative dress carries over to the traditional thoub that the men here wear. The thoub is a long white robe that is worn with a headdress (the gutra, or shemaag), which is held in place by a black rope called an aqaal. The men wear these everywhere. For some reason, the muttawa tend not to use the aqaal.
There are several malls, all indoor, air conditioned, clean and very, very nice. The idea that women aren’t allowed to roam around is proven incorrect with one trip to one of these malls. There are females everywhere – all in abayas. Any female who has entered menstruation must wear the abaya. Some of the women have abayas with a full veil over their entire heads (the hijab); others with it only covering their nose, mouth, and chin (the burga). There are even some who refuse to wear a veil – though I am sure they do in the center of the city. Islamic women not of KSA normally do not wear a veil of any sort over their faces. Western women don’t wear scarves at all and look like girls in choir robes. Most of the Western women carry their scarves with them just in case they run across an especially aggressive muttawa; but, so far, I’ve not seen anyone corrected, and I have not seen any muttawa at the malls.
A lot of women are there with their husbands, but many more come with their drivers and their children. Most Western women come as part of bus trips, which have a male escort; however, they roam freely without any incident. Children run freely and just seem to have a blast. The malls have places especially for the children to play. There are food tables in the food court area – the vast majority of which are for family dining – the unescorted male area being much smaller. An opaque fence bounds the family section, while the male only section is bounded by a metal rail fence. Technically, when ordering and paying for food, women are supposed to use one side of the counter (separated by a screen) and men the other. In practical effect, no one pays attention.
On the street, I have seen women walking with their children to some place, usually one of the stores or shops. However, out on the streets, thing are much more strict. In the souks, and on the downtown streets, women are not allowed in closed-in spaces with men, and they may only enter if accompanied by an appropriate male escort. In the restaurants, they may only gain entry if there is a family section. Many restaurants provide family sections; many do not. The muttawa are thick down there, and they are pretty aggressive – not only with women, but with men, too. One Westerner who works on another project in my building was accosted by a muttawa who jerked a large and prominent gold chain from around his neck (gold is a big no-no for men). The guy grabbed the muttawa and threatened him; his efforts got him 90 days in a Saudi jail. One does not want to go to a Saudi jail, let alone spend 90 days in one.
Television, uncensored via satellite, is having an impact on the society as a whole. Things that would’ve seemed out of place even ten years ago seem to be seeping into Saudi society. This is not unlike the influence of television on the West and the social changes that have been wrought since the 1950s. There are those who bemoan those changes, too.
That’s an overview of a very complicated issue. I am not an authority on the situation, so I can only discuss what I’ve seen, read, or heard from others. I doubt Western women would ever be happy in this situation. Conversely, there are conservative Islamic women who don’t want to see things change. Change is inevitable, so it will be interesting to see what things are like in KSA in twenty years time.
Copyright, Greg Hubbard, 2006.
Compound Life
Marhaba!
This has been a week of adjustment and settling into a new way of life. In the last week, I’ve acquired a new job, a new apartment, a new city and country in which to live, and a cat.
First, they have Starbucks. Do you know what you call an Iced Venti Americano here in Saudi Arabia (my drink of choice)? The answer will be at the end of the blog entry.
The first couple of days I was wiped out, having to come home the first day after work and take a nap. I took from Sunday to Wednesday before I could sleep through the night, without waking up wide-awake at 3am. But, on Thursday, I managed to sleep until the alarm clock woke me. On Friday, I was sleeping hard when I got a call from home. But, that’s okay; I like the caller.
The workweek here starts on Saturday and goes until about noon on Thursday. It’s becoming more common for companies to allow their employees to take off all day Thursday, but we work directly for the Saudi government; so, we don’t get that extra half-day. So, it’s a 44-hour workweek, which is all right. The scheduled workday is from 8am – 4pm, with no allowance for lunch. An hour for lunch is supposed to cost you an extra hour of work. Of course, everyone takes lunch and still leaves at 4pm.
Time here is on the 24-hour clock, which I much prefer to the 12-hour clock common in the United States. The 24-hour clock, which is used by countries throughout the world, is certain and unequivocal – you never have to wonder whether it’s morning or afternoon. I drive Cristina mad sometimes because she’ll pick up my watch, or I’ll refer to the time, and it’s always in 24-hour time.
Living on the compound is exactly like living on a military base – just a bigger room, and I don’t have to salute anyone. Plus, I have a kitchen, which I didn’t have as an enlisted man in the Navy. But, there’s the compound store, which is just a convenience store with more stuff crammed into a small space. A dry cleaners/laundry sits across the porch way from the mini-mart. Around the corner, there’s a set of shops including a jewelry store, a gift/tailor shop, and a pizza/Mediterranean bread place. I haven’t checked out any of them, yet; but I am sure that’s soon to come. There’s a restaurant that serves pretty fair food, and is cheap – a daily special that costs 20 Saudi Riyals ($5.33), and it’s way more food than I can eat. Across the indoor concourse from the restaurant, there’s a little Subway. Yep, Subway – a little kiosk that makes many of the same subs that they make in the United States. I haven’t eaten there, yet; however, I am told that their version is far drier than the American sandwich. I’ll check it out and see. Near the Subway is a coffee shop where they make the normal coffee drinks one might expect.
One of the more interesting things for me is the evening ritual where a large group of folks, mostly Lebanese and Eastern European, gather around the outdoor swimming pool each evening. They sit poolside and talk and smoke cigarettes and smoke flavored tobacco in hookahs…the burning coals sitting is trays atop the glass basins filled with water. I don’t smoke, but part of me wants to try one of those. They drink coffee or fruit flavored drinks that I don’t recognize and wile away the evening hours. I am told that a similar scene unfolds in downtown Riyadh each evening. A very Middle Eastern activity.
They fog for bugs here each Tuesday, something that Americans rarely see anymore. I started out for the dry cleaners the other day, but went right back into the apartment for about ½ hour when I saw this tiny Japanese pick-up, loaded up with insecticide and machinery, belching out a thick, foul smelling cloud of fumes. I wonder what kind of bugs they’re out to kill.
There’s a gymnasium, a lap pool, a family swimming pool, and numerous Jacuzzis across the compound. Near the indoor lap pool, there are saunas and steam baths. I am starting a swimming regimen this coming Monday, and I’ll swim laps each evening, Monday through Friday. (Saturday and Sunday are for laundry and cleaning the bathroom – fun, huh?) I love to swim, and I haven’t had an opportunity like this in quite a number of years.
We get a bunch of satellite channels for television viewing. I haven’t sorted through them all, yet. However, I have witnessed Russian TV, Japanese TV, Italian, French, Greek, and British TV. Of course there’s American TV (from a couple of seasons ago), a litany of movies, Arabic TV (some shows, but mostly information and news), Indian shows (which are fun to watch even if I don’t understand them)…CNN and BBC. So, I stay informed, actually knowing a good many things this past week before those in the United States knew.
Oh yeah…they call an Iced Venti Americano…get this…an Iced Venti Americano. The joke may be lost on some, but it’s there.
Cristina said that she’s telling everyone that I’ve gone into Navy mode, and that I am adapting well. She’s right about the Navy mode; it’s what I have in my repertoire of experience. Still, I miss my animals. I miss my mountain home. I miss my wife. It’s going to be a long year, but we’ll get to the other side.
Copyright, Greg Hubbard, 2006.
Marhaba!
Greetings from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia! I made it!
Wow! What a ride! It took 26 hours, from start to finish, getting from Cottage Grove, OR to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. To say I was tired does not do justice to how I felt when I finally crawled into bed at about 10:15pm local time (8:15am PDT) on Saturday August 5, 2006.
My day started when, at 3:45am PDT, Friday August 4, 2006. I got up showered and shaved in 15 minutes. My old Navy days clicked into gear rather easily, as they always do when I have cause to dredge up that particular set of skills. I’d been packing for the previous two days, and I’d finished up on Thursday night – loading everything into Cristina’s Mountaineer for the trip to the Eugene airport before I crawled into bed about 12:30am Friday morning. I woke Cristina up at 4am, and she managed to pull herself into action even though morning is not her best period of the day.
Before I left, I said good-bye to the house pets. Anybody that knows me knows that my animals are very important to me. We’ve had Cea (Chaya – our Shepherd/Wolf mix) since she was about six months old, Beatrice (alley cat #1 and a manx) since just after she was born, Skye (our Cairn Terrier) since she was six weeks old (Cristina will correct me if I get that one wrong), and Bear (alley cat #2, adopted from the Humane Society) since he was about six months old. Much to Cristina’s chagrin, I’ve got this St. Francis of Assisi thing going with the house pets. She’s good in a pinch, but they’d much rather have my attention; it’ll be interesting to see how that plays when I finally get to go back home. I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to drop in the pecking order. 
Check-in at Eugene was the first task. I knew that my two checked suitcases were overweight. I had to take a selection of my professional books with me, and books are heavy. The basic limit for bag weight on flights is 50 pounds. Up to 70 pounds, and the airlines will charge you an extra $50 per bag. Over 70 pounds — well, it gets really expensive, really fast. My two bags popped in at 65.5 and 73.4, respectively. The guy who checked me in just let it go at $50/bag, saying that he didn’t want to force me through the hassle of having to equalize the load. I really appreciated that. I hope he has a good year.
Cristina waited with me until I had to pass through the security checkpoint. She paralleled me, standing just outside the line. We kept touching each other and kissing. Previously, the longest we’d been apart — in seventeen years of being together — was twenty-one days, when both our moms had separate medical issues requiring our attention. The prospect of being apart for long past that milestone didn’t excite either one of us. We’re big kids, grown-ups, even, on some days; but, right then, we were love struck teenagers staring woefully into each others eyes, contemplating a long three-day weekend apart from each other. How could we manage? I finally made her leave.
Honestly, the rest of the trip, until I arrived in Saudi Arabia was pretty mundane air travel stuff. I dozed on the flight from Portland to Washington Dulles. Ate some lunch, drank an Iced Americano from Starbucks, and waited. I did try to find a wireless hook-up, but the only one I could find had an unsecured web page for accepting payment for the day pass. Sorry, no can do.
Traveling on Air France was pleasant, both the trip to Paris and the trip to Riyadh. Well, there was one physical issue on the trip to Riyadh: My right thigh began to cramp in the hamstring area around hour 21 of my travels. I’m telling you that I wish that had not occurred. I couldn’t sit down for about fifteen minutes, and I had to move my leg gingerly thereafter. Other than that, though, the flights were good. Air France had very pleasant attendants, and all the food, water, coffee/tea/soft drinks, beer and wine, were free. Of course, going into Saudi airspace, they had to stop serving alcohol and remove the open containers to the trash. I don’t drink when flying because it dehydrates a person very badly in pressurized cabins. But, the water was good.
I don’t sleep well on airplane flights, so the best I could do was doze for five or ten minutes here and there. So, I got my fill of movies. I watched Over the Hedge (I’d give it a B-) on the U.S. flight. On the Paris flight, Air France gives each flyer their own personal screen, with a selection of programs and games on demand. I watched two movies: MI:3 (better than I expected, a B) and Keeping Mum (B+), a little British film of which I enjoyed it all except the very ending. They showed one film to everyone on the Riyadh flight, Little Manhattan, but that didn’t interest me much; I tried to doze, but couldn’t.
On arriving in Riyadh, I filled out the usual paperwork required when entering another country and started looking for the correct line through the passport portion of Customs. I saw one that said Businessmen with Business Visas (I think that was the wording), so I got into that line, along with about two hundred very brown-skinned, Indian sub-continent folks (maybe Pakistani or Bangladeshi?). Within seconds, a young Saudi Customs Officer approached me and asked me if I had been on the Air France flight. I confirmed that I had, and he directed me to a line on the other side of the room, lined with Westerners of all colors, that moved at warp speed in comparison to all the remaining lines. I stayed in the queue right up to the black line behind which they have individuals stand, and then stepped forward to the official reviewing passports. I had the passport opened to my visa, and he spent about thirty seconds reviewing it, the paperwork I gave him, and whatever information came up on the computer screen. I might (and I stress the might) have been in line for a minute-and-a-half. I went on and recovered my two bags, both of which made the trip safely, though one TSA-approved lock had slipped off the suitcase and was dangling there. From there, I went to the second part of customs, loaded my bags, my carry-on, and my computer onto a conveyor belt and waited as they were x-rayed. The official watched passively as they passed through the machine and waved me on to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I pushed through the exit doors and saw a crowd of maybe one hundred people standing behind a pretty barricade comprised of frosted glass and chrome – many of them holding up signs with people’s names on them. I scanned the mass of folks and spotted my contact, a Bangladeshi named Shahin holding up a card that had my full name printed across it: James Gregory Hubbard. I acknowledged him with a nod of my head, and we both made for the end of the barricade. We escaped from the 112-F heat into the confines of his car and began our journey to the FAL Compound.
I’ll detail the FAL Compound in another entry, but briefly let me say that, when we rode up to the gate, an armed tank, with machine-gun toting soldiers (National Guard, actually) standing atop it, greeted us. An armored personnel carrier sat not far off, and armed soldiers manned the entry into the living area, which is arrived at by winding through a maze of concrete barriers intended on slowing a truck bomber. Once inside the compound, though, it was like being in any apartment complex – except that it is truly multi-national.
That’s really where the story ends. I got my stuff into the apartment, got a basic unpack done, and then went to bed. I only slept for five hours, rising at 3:30am, but what a glorious five hours they were. 
By the way, marhaba means welcome, but is used as a greeting the same as we’d say, hello.
Copyright, Greg Hubbard, 2006.
