Brainscrubber

I just left a huge block party composed of mostly young people under 25 who were gyrating and shaking and moving to the loud, rhythmic thump-thump of electronic trance music.  No gender separation.  Girls with no scarves on their heads, no abayas, showing bare shoulders, arms, legs.  Tight jeans, spaghetti-strap tanks, tee-shirts, short skirts instead.  Boys trying to impress girls.  Girls trying to impress boys.  Loud and boistrous.  In short, a muttawa’s nightmare.

Just for that reason, I have no photos for you to see.  I don’t want anyone to get into trouble.

I love to watch kids having fun.  90% of it is just youthful energy that needs to be expended somewhere.  The 10% that might be a little less pure in its fun – well, that’s going to happen anyway.  But, these kids were having a blast.  Sure, there were plenty of women and girls there in scarves and demure clothing; but, even they and their male escorts had smiles on their faces and were laughing and close by those less bound by cultural tradition.

Every year we have a street bazaar on the compound.  The last two years they’ve brought in about 25-30 vendors selling mostly Arabic and Pakistani/Indian trinkets and wares.  One of the vendors missing this year sold some interesting Russian items.  Usually, someone is here with Chinese stuff, and they were here again this year.  There’s always one or two folks selling beautiful carpets and rugs, some of which actually may be handmade as they claim.  Unfortunately, the vendor numbers were down this year for some reason, and the selection was not nearly as good as it was the previous two years.  Maybe it was the time of the year.  Normally, the bazaar is in November, and there’s lots of Christmas stuff to be bought by Christian expatriates who want a bit of home during the holidays.

We have a longish street – about two blocks uninterrupted – and that is where they put everyone.  Although the street is pretty wide, it was jammed tonight, and it took some effort to weave through the crowd.  This was especially true around the area where the kids danced in a tightly circled group, primeval fervor normally buried beneath abayas and Wahabist laws rising to the surface in response to primitive beats present anywhere I’ve ever been.

Camels and ponies stood lazy and bored at one end of the street, waiting for this parent or that to place their kid(s) astride the saddle so they could snap a shot with their phone camera.  Two shwarma stands stood near the Pizza Hut and Little Caesar’s stands.  Starbucks competed with a locally owned coffee shop for a shot at the nighttime caffeine fix; the local place seemed to be winning.  Subway offered a more healthy option, and compound tenants with an entrepreneurial bent filled in by selling hotdogs and blended fruit drinks.

A wind blew in from the surrounding desert carrying fine particles of sand that looked like fog against the mercury lamps near the end of the street.  No doubt the wind also carried the sound of the trance beat over the walls to the nearby locals.  Tonight, somewhere, a muttawa will have a very, very bad dream.

Riyadh is not an exciting place.

As I have stated before, people break the monotony by eating or by shopping – even if they don’t need or want to do either of those things.  They might go to a coffee shop for an hour or so – maybe take the grill out to the desert and do some sand-sitting with friends or family.

On Friday (read Sunday), I usually buy groceries in the morning and hit the bookstore in the afternoon.  At the bookstore, I try not to buy anything; I have enough books.  But, it’s a place that is comfortable for me, and I can wander around unbothered as I scan the bookshelves and remainders tables – occasionally finding something worth snatching up for perusal.  Afterwards, I usually go to Starbucks, which is right next door, pick up a drink and head back to the apartment.  That’s how I typically spend 4pm – 5pm or so on a Friday afternoon.  Not exciting, but a break in the day.

Today (Friday) it has stormed all day long.  Thunderstorm after thunderstorm.  Bolts of lightning rising hundreds of feet into the sky from the earth.  Cracks of thunder so sharp as to jumpstart the old heart or so low as to seem as if it is rising from the core of the earth – shaking buildings as if it was an earthquake.  We even had some marble-sized hail about 2pm.  The storms started before I rose at 6:30am, and they are still coming and going 12 hours later, as I write this.

Like almost every other Friday, I walked out to the car and headed over to the bookstore around 4 o’clock.  This time, though, I did it during the rain.  On Fridays, I almost always take the back way to the store, through a section of the city that is still largely undeveloped, on a road that gives way to becoming a major thoroughfare navigating between commercial stores and office buildings waiting to be filled by tenants.  Today, I learned where every depression in the street is located. 

You can’t call it flash flooding, but it’s definitely flooding.  Thousands of gallons of rainwater collecting in low areas and dips.  If you want to get from one side to the other, you gotta drive through it.  In most cases, I would have turned around and gone back to the apartment.  However, I know this road pretty well, and I knew the water would rarely rise above 7″ – 8″.  But, that would be enough to get pretty close to the bottom of the chassis.  The biggest problem came with the slowness of the cars.  It’s necessary to go slow through these huge ponds (and there were about 10 before I got to the bookstore).  Unfortunately, the slowness seemed to exacerbate the churn, which meant water splashing up under the hood…getting all sorts of stuff wet that ain’t supposed to be wet.

It rains so seldom here that storm drainage is not cost effective.  Over the next few days, there’ll be mobile water pumps set up all around the city.  The most fun thing I’ve seen has been a bulldozer pushing water toward a pump, away from where the cars were driving. 

I wonder what would happen if they got a freak snowstorm and nature dropped 4″ on ‘em?