Brainscrubber

My childhood spanned the 1960s.

I am blessed with a pretty good memory, and I can remember JFK’s assassination (yes, I know where I was), hippies, psychedelia (no, not first-hand, though that would explain some things), cigarette commercials, the first anti-smoking commercials, Laugh-In, miniskirts (I liked miniskirts), micro-miniskirts (I really liked micro-miniskirts), and Chief Iron Eyes Cody.

If you don’t remember Chief Iron Eyes Cody, that is unfortunate, because he was emblematic of one of the better movements to arise in the 1960s and carry through to today. Although President Johnson’s wife Lady Bird took on the task of beautifying America, it was a series of commercials showing a montage of images highlighting the physical rot and decay and pollution located in various parts of the United States that really helped bring the issue home to a lot of Americans, especially impressionable young kids. At the end of each commercial, Chief Iron Eyes Cody stood on a vista overlooking the land, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. He dramatized the hurt and disgust a lot of folks felt when they saw their polluted land. Chief Iron Eyes Cody died in 1999, but the pride most Americans feel in NOT polluting survives into the 21st Century – thanks in no small part to those commercials.

I’ve decided the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs to find a Chief Iron Eyes Cody. The other day, I saw a man throw a drink cup and a sandwich wrapper out the window as he drove down the street. I remember seeing that type of thing when I was a kid, and I am sure it still happens occasionally; but, I personally have not witnessed such blatant disregard in the U.S. in enough time that nothing specific comes to mind. Here, in KSA, it is common place.

The sides of roads are lined with garbage. The gutters of streets can look like a trash bin in the mornings, before the little brown people come along and sweep things up by hand. People go out at night and sit in the desert (we call them sandsitters) or in parks or in parking lots or along the sides of roads or streets and enjoy the cool of the evening with friends and family – leaving behind massive amounts of trash when they depart. For a nation that takes such pride in being proud, it is shocking how little the populace seems to care about the pollution of their streets, roads, parks, and deserts.

So, I have become convinced they need a Chief Iron Eyes Cody to stand in archetypal drama and shame them into picking up their litter – just as we Americans had to have done to us some 40 years ago. Can you see the commercial – a Bedouin sheikh sitting astride a camel, atop a sand dune, staring down at the trashed picnic area left behind by revelers from the night before – a single tear rolling down his windburned and wrinkled cheek?

It worked once. I don’t know why it couldn’t work again.

A few months ago I asked where the women in KSA wore also those hot and chic clothes I see for sale in the windows of stores in the malls. I now know where a large number of them are worn: parties at the American Embassy.

The Marine Detachment at the Embassy host parties about once a month here, but it’s not easy to get an invite. You have to know somebody who knows someone who knows somebody else. Then, you can get on an email list where you may or may not get an invite to buy a ticket for whatever themed party is going on in that specific month. If you can bring a female guest, you will usually get an invite. If you can bring two females, you will always get invited.

I didn’t realize so many Western women worked in Riyadh until Thursday night. But, they do. And, given their abaya requirements on the outside, they apparently love to dress to the nines when they get invited to these get-togethers. High-heels, short skirts, tight tops…or…tight tops, skin-tight jeans, high-heels. Though some dressed a tad more modestly, there was an awful lot of thigh and decolletage in attendance. Turns out most of them work at King Faisal Specialty Hospital, where the Royals go, and where common folk like me have to once again have a special invite and referral to gain treatment.

I guess you really can’t call it a get-together, either. By the time they issued last call (a REAL last call, btw), there were between 300 and 400 people in attendance. A long buffet table provided enough food to feed that many people easily, and there were a couple of custom cook stations available, too. Beef Wellington, a couple of prawn dishes, various types of chicken, many different kinds of salad, shwarma sandwiches, Arabic fare – the only way to go hungry was not come to the Embassy that night.

A DJ played a good mix of pop music from various decades; although, despite being billed as Western Night, there was a very limited offering of Country music. I watched one young woman dance with a guy in a white shirt for most of the night. From their accomplished moves and steps, I would guess they were Swing dancers. At one point, her partner held her as she did an in-place backflip, perfectly choreographed to the music.

For a while, they were the only two on the dance floor, but around 9pm, the DJ put a couple of Arabic songs on, and the dance floor filled to capacity. Another couple of of Arabic songs, and the dance party was underway. Rock & Roll, 1970s Disco (people still like The Bee Gees and K.C. & The Sunshine Band, it turns out), and modern dance music kept 200 or so people dancing at any given time. It’s fun watching people cut loose and have fun.

My friend (who got me the ticket) and I left about 12am and returned to a foreign land once more. Sure had a good time while I was elsewhere, though.

Moment 1

Friday in KSA is like Sunday in the U.S. – slow, lazy, sometimes boring.

Bibliophile that I am, I find it quite enjoyable to wander through the maze of shelves in a bookstore, even if I don’t buy a thing. Pick up an interesting title. Read the cover, the flyleaf, maybe the preface/introduction. Put it back on the shelf and look for something else that is interesting. Friday afternoons and bibliophilia seem to go together, and I often find myself in one of the many Jarir Bookstores on those days.

A couple of Fridays ago, true to form, I got in the car and drove to a nearby Jarir. I found my place of solace and comfort in turmoil, however. As many stores do these days, they were in the midst of moving items from one spot and putting them in another spot. Theoretically, it’s to force customers to walk through new parts of the store they might not have ventured through previously. Realistically, it’s a royal pain in the rear that seldom results in me doing anything more than cursing the marketing consultant who made this advisory and the high-up-mukiteemucks who bought into the scheme. This time I did have a new experience.

As I looked to see what the store folks had moved where, I noticed an Arab guy, wearing a thoub, but sans gutra, kept looking at me. He was looking at dictionaries, English dictionaries, and he finally stopped me. “Sir, can I bother you for a moment?”

“Sure,” I replied.

“You are American, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” I am always reticent when that question is asked, and I make sure I know where all the exits are.

“Can you recommend for me a good English dictionary? I am an English teacher, though I am Syrian, at a school here in Riyadh, and I am trying to find a good dictionary.” He smiled. He was clearly trying to be friendly, and it seemed to me the dictionary was a pretext to initiate a conversation in English. This is not uncommon in Riyadh.

He was holding the Oxford English Dictionary. I pointed to it and said, “The OED is hard to beat. It’s the one I’d pick.”

He arched his eyebrows a bit. “You are an American, yet you would recommend the OED?”

“The best is the best.”

He smiled again, and we began to exchange some pleasantries as he asked me about myself and volunteered some more information about himself. He was especially interested in how his English usage and accent came across to me. He was very good, I assured him. Our conversation, a very enjoyable one, went on for maybe 10 minutes, before I finally excused myself, suggesting that if we ran into each other again, we should share some coffee (there’s a Starbucks next door). He thought that was a good idea.

As I started to leave, I stuck out my hand, and he took it and shook it. Then, he looked me straight in the eyes, a wistful expression on his face, and told me, “I wish our two countries had better relations.”

“So do I.”

Moment 2

Starbucks.

Huge profit gouging corporation preying on innocent coffee farmers or responsible corporate citizen working to save the environment and ensure a working wage for coffee farmers the world around?

I don’t know. For me, they’re a touch of home, and I often pay a lot more for an Iced Venti Americano inside a Starbucks store than what it would cost me to make the same drink back in my apartment. Sometimes I just need that tenuous emotional connection to back home. As a result, the baristas in two of the stores know me by sight, as I do them. The familiarity is comforting.

One morning not so long ago, I found myself to be the only customer early on a very, very slow Thursday morning (read Saturday). The young man behind the counter asked me where I was from, and I told him America. The U.S. or the United States, as a response, is too detailed (though many like to say, “USA,” as a clarifying phrase). There is only one America as far as most of these guys are concerned. His face lit up, and he smiled. In turn, I asked him where his home was.

“Nepal,” he told me. A wistful tone colored his voice, and a not quite smile/not quite frown took his mouth.

“I’d like to visit Nepal,” I answered.

He offered a real smile this time. “It is such a beautiful place. I can’t wait to go home. I miss it so much.”

I smiled back. He handed me my Americano. I thanked him, and I left.

I haven’t seen him since. I hope he’s in Nepal.

Moment 3

The two cars in front of us vied for the same position in traffic. The cab held the advantage, sitting on the inside lane. The non-descript Nissan trying to punch in front of the cab twitched aggressively toward the front fender of the cab. Normally, I don’t pay much attention to this sort of behavior; it’s all too common. This time, though, the aggression didn’t seem limited to vehicle versus vehicle.

A young guy, late teens early twenties leaned out the back window of the Nissan and gesticulated with his left hand toward the cab. In the back of the cab, two very slender young women in abayas and hajib – but lacking veils – watched the verbal and somatic onslaught. The young woman on the left just turned away and faced the other direction. But, the girl on the right, lifted her right hand and uncurled her middle finger, offering a non-verbal response recognized around the world…repeatedly.

With conviction.

Another first for me in the Kingdom.