The Grinch Stole Christmas...and its not all that bad

So the holidays in the western world are over and here in Saudi Arabia it is as though they never happened. When the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became a country in 1932 King Abdul Aziz formed the country by banding together a bunch of nomadic desert wandering warring tribes using their common religion as the glue that holds them together. (The billions in dollars they receive each year in oil profits certainly sweetens the deal though)

 This is the fort that is considered the birthplace of Saudi Arabia. 

This means that KSA is under Islamic law, also called Sharia Law, which means that we celebrate Muslim holidays and follow the Hijri calendar.  This also means that Christmas and New Years and every other holiday that involves religion or celebrations or alchohol or music or dancing or fun or general merriment is strictly forbidden.  There was absolutely no sign that Christmas was happening.  No Christmas trees, no lights, no Santa, no music playing in the malls, no Christmas sales, no days off of work, no candy canes and worst of all no egg nog.  We weren’t even allowed to say Merry Christmas to each other at work. It was crazy, but at least I was able to see what Whoville would have looked like if it wasn’t for Cindy Loo Who.  

As strange as it was to be in a place with no Christmas during Christmastime, it was also fascinating to take a look at Christmas without the culture and the commercialism. When you strip it down to the bare basics what you have is a chance to examine why and how you personally celebrate Christ. 

There were also some other benefits to having Christmas in KSA.

1) Friends become Family-It is one of the things I love most about living abroad. The expat community is very tight knit and in the absence of blood relatives, you create a family of friends.  I spent the evening of the 24th with a group of fascinating, wonderful people from the US and Taiwan and some absolutely adorable kids at their house on their compound.  Look they didn't need to piece together costumes from bathrobes and sheets, they just took out the typical local garb and voila, nativity scene in a place not all that far from the original. 

We sang carols and had a lovely evening that included homemade pies and a huge Nerf gun fight in which I was attacked by a troop of 5 little boys. Perfect night! 

Then on December 25th I got together with a group of awesome people... 

These are two ladies who are here teaching English at women's universities...and they both went to BYU. 

We went out to eat at a traditional Saudi restaurant, where you just lounge on pillows on the floor and eat delicious food off of mats. This is the front, the ladies entrance is around the back and up the stairs.

...and here is a cool car that was in front of the restaurant and me with one of the most fabulous ladies ever.  She has 5 adorable children and treats everyone like family.

2) You get to focus on the real reason for the season- In the rest of the world, Christmas is everywhere you look. Even if you didn't really want to celebrate it, it would be unavoidable. Here you have to make a conscious effort to acknowledge it and to celebrate it in your own way.  It makes for a lot more introspection.

3) You don't have to worry about buying gifts- This year I didn’t buy any gifts for anyone. It was positively liberating. My love language (of the famous love language book series) is not gift giving. I neither feel nor communicate love through gifts, so it was no great loss to my feeling loved but it was a huge relief to not have to guess what people may or may not hate. There was no stress, there were no deadlines, no long lines.

I did however receive a few gifts from people.  This lovely duck was from one of my teachers. I named her Petula after the teacher who gave her to me and I find her delightful!

4) You can go shopping on the 24th, 25th and 26th and there are NO crowds.

5)You never have to listen to "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"

I did, however, run into this guy at one point...shhh don't tell anyone. It appears that he and his reindeer snuck in.

That all being said, I did miss seeing family and friends and look forward to many Christmases that are celebrated in the traditional Western way.  With Christmas music, Christmas trees, giving gifts, and lots of egg nog. 

Food

I am going to attempt to respond to some of the questions that those of you who have left comments have asked.  Several people have asked about what I eat here.  I cook my own food so I eat stuff that is very similar to what I ate in the states.  I am happy to report they have all the chip and candy bar varieties you can handle including lots of new flavors of chips and lots of candy from Europe.  There are toblerone bars everywhere you look...but beware of the Saudi version of Ketchup flavored chips...I learned that one the hard way!
 
I shop at big beautiful grocery stores that look more like grocery stores in California and Utah than those in NYC.

 

 They even have a lot of the same products.  You can get just about anything here that you can get in Europe or the states as most of it comes from those places. That goes for products at the grocery store as well as fast food restaurants and clothing and make up stores. All the major restaurants and stores are here including Applebees, Outback Steakhouse, Sephora, Mac, Bath and Body Works and on and on and on.  Saudi Arabia is such a young country that it hasn't had time to really develop its own stuff.  Before 1930 it was still made up of warring desert tribes, when all of a sudden oil was discovered and it was magically transformed into one of the richest countries in the world.  They needed to act like a first world country and fast, so that the people would have somewhere to spend all this new money, so they borrowed from the other rich countries and as a result have malls that look a lot like posh malls in America and Europe.

 

They have an assortment of cereals.  The ones from the US are a little more expensive but after trying the Saudi version of coco puffs I can assure you it is worth it.

 

The Saudi's are fond of ketchup.  My students put it on EVERYTHING! ie falafel, gyros, turkey sandwiches, pretzels etc.

 

The Saudi's have attempted to create their own versions of all of these imported processed goods and most of the imitations are AWFUL.  As you can imagine, produce is pretty sparse in the desert. Watermelon and carrots grow here but not much else.

 

So most of it is imported from Europe which makes it taste kind of old.  There are some produce items imported all the way from the states.  Some even came all the way from my hometown!

I am pretty sure these came from Bakersfield too, since it seems they are charging us for their plane ticket.

 There are small differences if you are looking for them. Some are good and some are bad.  The hummus, taboulah, eggplant tahini and babaganoosh are fantastic. As is the pita bread they make fresh each day.  I east a pita at each meal and they are delightful. They have some delicious juices.  My favorite is Kiwi Lime.

 Here is a jar of homemade pickles.  I played it safe and bought vlasic.

Locally grown and halal approved if you dare...

 

 I dared...it tastes gamey and tough and the flavor is pretty bad, so I would prefer chicken to camel but camel to cow stomach (which they also sell, but i fortunately learned my lesson in Chile).

If I ignore the women shrouded in black,  I often feel like I am in the US in the supermarket right up until you hear the prayer call and the whole store closes.  They lock the doors and nobody can come or go and all the employees disappear for 30 minutes to go pray, and you are stuck in the refrigerator section, not wanting to put the items in your cart until the pray is over.

So I eat hummus and pita and oranges from Spain and apples from France and lots and lots of European chocolate.

My friend Alana and I went out one day to have real Saudi food at a Saudi restaurant.

We took a picture of the front of it, but we couldn't enter at the main entrance (being women and all) so we snuck around the back to hidden women's entrance.

 The decor was all very traditional. No tables and chairs, just rugs and pillows on the floor for more of a lounging around eating.

 They serve the food on the floor on a big woven mat. We got some cucumber, yogurt salad, some camel kabsa (nasty) and some pumpkin chicken mixture (amazing).

 The women eat upstairs in these private rooms so NO ABAYA...WAHOO!!

 We also went and had Turkish food one night.  It was really good.

 I didn't get a picture but a group of teachers went and had Armenian food one night which was fascinating.  I had lamb that had been cooked for hours in what tasted exactly like cherry pie filling. It was better than dessert.

Middle Eastern food is good, but the Saudi's are embracing American and European food so fast that it is hard to find, and most of the fast food Saudi restaurants don't allow women at all, so perhaps I will never know.  If my students are any indication of what Saudi's eat I would say they have a steady diet of coffee, chips and candy bars.

Under The Invisibility Cloak

One of the advantages of being a woman here in Saudi Arabia is that I get to talk to and see women under the black cloaks that keep them hidden from the rest of the world.

In Saudi Arabia women have a very strict dress code. They must, without fail, wear a black abaya, a black hijab and a black niqab. I am told that only recently have the abayas been permitted to have a little bit of sparkle or a splash of color on the ends of the sleeves, but only foreigners wear those. A real Saudi Women is a purist and wears plain black. An abaya is intended to take away all a woman’s curves and hide the way she walks from men. Girls start wearing the abayas when they start going through puberty. You can see 9 or ten year old girls wearing training abayas that are just black robes that they leave open in the front. They don't wear the hijab etc until they are about 12 or 13.

There are stores like this one all over the place that sell nothing but black abayas, hijabs and niqabs.

The hijab is the head scarf that is meant to cover a woman’s hair. In KSA it is black, foreigners sometimes wear colors other than black, but it makes you stick out and invites everyone to stare at you. The niqab is a piece of black cloth that is tied around your head over your hijab to cover your entire face with a small slit for your eyes to peer out.

There are niqabs that have a thinner fabric over the eyes so that not even your eyes are visible but those are less common. Non-muslims are not required to wear the niqab but some do just to avoid the unwanted attention. The entire ensemble is intended to make women invisible. Saudi’s will tell you it is to protect women from men and their (apparently) uncontrollable need to attack women. I think it is to help you know what it would feel like to be invisible.

And if there is a wardrobe malfunction and a woman is visible...there is always photoshop to erase them. In case you haven't read it, the Ikea catalogs for Saudi Arabia have had all the women removed. There are no pictures of women on billboards or advertisements, products or signs. In major European or American stores, the in store displays are modified to erase the women's faces.

My students are all 18 to 19 year old girls with fancy smart phones and in each class, after they became comfortable with me, one of the girls would shyly walk up to me with her phone and nervously piece together the words of a request to take my picture. They are strictly forbidden from taking pictures of themselves, their mothers, their sisters and their friends so when I agree (because I really don't care if my picture is taken) they all whip out their phones and to the soundtrack of giggling and squeals of delight they take 100s of photos of me but are extremely careful to not stand in front of a camera. They duck and avoid them as though they are loaded guns, shrieking if they think someone is pointing the camera at them. They gave presentations about their family and only showed pictures of men, even though we are in an all women's university.

This uniformity of appearance can present challenges because you really can't tell people apart. I remember I went to the mall my first day here. It was full of women and wonderful shops. As it turns out there are TONS of big beautiful air conditioned shopping malls. I understand that this is what the Saudi Women do all day. They can’t work, they can’t drive, there are no movie theaters here and eating at restaurants can be complicated without your husband so their husbands drop them off at the mall and they stay there all day. If you do want to catch a bite to eat at a public place like a mall you can buy it at the "ladies window" and then take it behind these screens to eat it. Men can't go back there because there are women who have raised their niqabs to eat.

Women have a separate entrance to Mosques, restaurants and even banks!

All the women are in full black getup whenever they go out. They all look exactly the same, long flowy black abayas and a black hood covering their head and face. Only their eyes are peering out and some even have their eyes covered. I was standing in the crowded supermarket and saw a little 5 year old girl running frantically around and calling for her mother. She, like most children at some point or another, got separated from her mother and was now frantic to find her. I was thinking how much more difficult that situation would be for her. She was looking at a sea of black burqas and the only way to identify her mother would be to hear her voice or to see her eyes closely because even everyone’s eyes look similar. I am told that Saudi children learn to notice their mom's height and size, the way she walks and the shoes she wears or they are just cautious not to get lost.

That all being said...UNDER the invisibility cloak these women are smart and sassy and stylish and outspoken and fun! I just adore my students and love working with them. At school they don't wear their abayas and it is always a shock to me to see them putting it all on as they approach the exit. While on campus each girl wears a black skirt and a modest top, but the uniformity ends there. Their hairstyles, shirts and shoes and even glasses seem to scream at the top of their lungs that under all that black fabric they are indeed unique. They have style and interests. There are hipsters, and athletes, and nerds and tomboys and prima-donnas with tons of make up and high end clothing. They laugh and joke and play and cry and even pray here in their private world and then at the end of the day they all head for the door and just before they walk out into the men’s world beyond they wrap themselves completely in black and join the uniform ranks of women, where their uniqueness is only evident in the eye makeup and fake lashes they wear There is usually a mutawa (religious police) waiting just on the other side of the gate to make sure that everyone is completely covered.

I love being able to see both sides of this fascinating culture. But I am glad I don't have to see it from behind a mask.

Pictures

**Two Blog posts today.

So taking pictures is complicated here. You can't take pictures of women...PERIOD. You can't take pictures of government buildings. You can't really walk around much so any picture you take has to be from a speeding taxi.

Just to give you a glimpse of it though...I took a few from the monorail.

Here is the big mosque on campus. There are LOTS of smaller ones because they always have to be an easy distance to get to 5 times a day.

Here is a shot from further away. Faculty housing as far as the eye can see. It is over 90% empty right now, but they are hoping to fill it up. The whole campus was built in less than 2 years so now they just have to build up the school.

This is looking out the other direction. Its just desert. Princess Nora is a bit outside of Riyadh. We are in the suburbs near the airport.

As I said, you can't take pictures of women and even the signs on campus have to have drawings of women appropriately dressed.

More pictures to come too.

Al Salaam 'aalaykum means Hello

Hello from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia! I should have known by the difficulty in learning the greeting that learning the culture here would be difficult as well. It is difficult and fascinating and challenging and exciting all wrapped up in one and covered in sand. Its like one of the biggest puzzles in the world and I am loving the process of figuring it out.


I have now been here for 2 full weeks and am beginning to wrap my mind around the complexities of living here as a single, American, Infidel, woman. I know now that all four of those adjectives are strikes against me, but so far this has not proven to be like American baseball so they have not kicked me out, they have just made life complicated...as punishment. :)


The morning I left I ate a lovely breakfast sandwich with Laura, mom and Lila and said farewell to bacon. I went to the airport to begin my LONG journey to the other side of the world. On my flight from Bakersfield I sat next to an LDS woman from Tehachapi who was knitting with yarn that was coming out of her "Time Out For Women" bag. I decided to chat with her about church things, as a farewell to speaking about religion publicly. After a layover in Houston, I headed to London on a red eye and was sitting next to a couple who had (I firmly believe) never flown before and were a bit wacky. I had never been to England before and I don't know if it being hour 18 of my journey had anything to do with it but I kept laughing at everyone because it sounded to me like they were all faking their accents. I felt like I was being punked and had been placed in a big building filled with people with fake British accents.


As we were waiting to board I was looking around and noticing that 99% of the people looked Arab. We got on the plane and before we even left the gate we were offered dates and coffee and then there was a prayer of sorts to bless our journey. The flight attendants were women and their uniforms covered their head and hair completely and even included a loose veil on their face.


I still was not nervous at all about going; I was excited.


The whole flight to Riyadh i was wondering when I needed to put on my abaya and what would happen if I somehow didn’t get the message. I kept looking around and seeing that everyone else seemed to have put their abaya on before boarding. I asked the flight attendant but her broken English implied an even more broken understanding of my question so I just made my way to the bathroom and put one on and began to understand just how uncomfortable the next 9 months might be. We landed and got in the lines at customs and waited for over an hour. I got in the line for foreign women. Men were in another line. I happened to be standing next to a girl from Connecticut and one from England so we had a lovely time chatting about our fascination with and concerns for life in KSA. The American was going to teach at a University and the Brit was visiting her father. After going through customs i grabbed my bags and they were sent through another scanning machine. This scanning machine seemed to be unmanned probably because it was now 10pm but the other women i work with said that after passing through that machine their collection of DVDs was removed and they were brought into a back room where each DVD was played on fast forward to screen it for any inappropriate material.


I then walked out and saw a sign for Princess Noura Univeristy and was greeted by an Egyptian and an East Indian man who spoke no English. They drove me through the pitch black desert night to my apartment. I have come to realize that uneducated work like driving would never be done by a Saudi. So, while I would like to learn Arabic, it apparently will do me very little good, as Hindi and Urdu are the languages most commonly spoken by all the drivers and shop keepers and waiters and cashiers and basically anyone who I will need help from.


There is sand as far as the eye can see and the air is filled with dust I feel like I have already inhaled a good portion of the desert but it hasn’t seemed to make a dent. Riyadh seems like a city that hasn’t quite decided if it is third world or first world. There is a mixture of the types of shops and roads you would find in any 3rd world country next to big beautiful new shopping malls with Gucci, Louis Voutton etc. The price of gas is cheaper than water.



I think that is enough to whet your appetite. More to come...

Hello Again

I don't know that anyone still looks at this... but just in case I am on someone's blog roll. Here is a video that my family and I made to promote organ donor awareness on the one year anniversary of my Dad's heart transplant.

We Received a Heart

Thankful?

Today I had a conference out in Flushing Queens so I had to ride the train there for over and hour. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection on the window and it hit me like an MTA bus…I have become a New Yorker!!! There I stood with my black shoes, black pants, black wool coat, black scarf, white iphone headphones playing the podcast of This American Life, holding a thermos cup with tea (Tazo Cinnamon Spice EXCELLENT) standing in the moving train, close to but not touching the pole and staring expressionless ahead, oblivious to the 100 people all around me. After almost hyperventilating at the prospect of being a New Yorker, I realized that my relationship with New York City has been pretty good lately, what with it being Christmas and all and the city has put on her sparkly Christmas dress while the freezing temperatures mask the smell.

A friend of mine, actually Cristi’s brother in law, has been in charge of the Organ at Radio City Music Hall since his dad retired from the position.


So he got me and a friend of mine tickets to the opening night of the Rockette’s Christmas Spectacular. I had never seen the Rockettes perform and was mesmerized from beginning to end. The coolest part though was at the very end they do a live nativity complete with Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. It was so strange to see something religious on a stage in NYC. I was thrilled that they do that. Then Rich and Ronnie, took us on a backstage tour where I was able to do the can can on the stage of Radio City Music Hall! Hooray! Then we went to the cast party and mingled with the Rockette’s who are all very proud of their legs and decided to wear the smallest cocktail dresses possible.

Thanksgiving was lots of fun. My roommate Holly and I headed down to Time Square to see the balloons in the parade. It was pretty warm out and fun to be with thousands of people cheering for cartoon characters.

I have done it a few times and I liked the location in Times Square because it looks like the balloons are coming straight for you with a menacing fist in the air.



We went back home and I gave moral support while my roommates cooked TONS of food.

Then I ran up to Broadway, hailed a cab and brought it down to our house so that we could transport our Thanksgiving Feast (turkey, gravy, sweet potato casserole, 3 pies etc ) up to our friends house where she had 20 people invited for the night.


It was a blast, good food and great people. As has become my tradition, we took a walk between feast and pies. This year we walked up to the Cloisters (a museum affiliated with the Met). Gorgeous warm night! I am thankful for good friends, family, and to live in a city that keeps life interesting.