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.

Bakersfield, CA: tourist attraction?

So it has come to my attention that I am a less than faithful blogger. I can’t say that I am all that moved, but after all the adorable Halloween posts of the nieces and nephews I thought I should slap some pictures of my own up.

First I can’t possibly overlook the one week in its entire history when Bakersfield became a tourist attraction. It boasted one tourist…Cristi Johnson. She came all the way from NYC to walk “the streets of Bakersfield.”

And walk them we did. The highlight reel of the week included sleeping under the (glow in the dark plastic) stars (on the ceiling) in the cowboy room with the awesome bed, being schooled in swimming by the Skinner fish, visiting the center of Bakersfield culture at the Crystal Palace where we were able to pay homage to the statue of Buck himself, visiting Dad’s power plant. (this was actually fascinating, I had no idea what a beast of an operation it is, it was also fun to see all the people over there treat Dad like a very big deal. I am sure he is grateful to those who saved him from getting a big head by providing a bit of a balancing environment at home.

We went to the Kern County Museum and had a blast exploring Bakersfield's old houses and oil industry.

Bryce took us rock climbing up in the canyon

we visited Edwards Cinema (because when we looked at all the guidebooks it was mentioned as one of the top three attractions).

we went to see the famous Bakersfield High School

Being the New Yorkers and world travelers that we are, Cristi and I know that in every great tourist town you can find a great walking tour of the Homes of the Noteworthy and Influential, I am glad to say, Bakersfield was no exception. This walking tour was guided by none other than Dad and his trusty rat on a leash. Fitting guides for Bakersfield I would say. He made sure that we got a long look at all the hot spots in Bakersfield. Cristi was noteably excited throughout. Here we passed the Stake President’s house who reportedly has NINE daughters and one son.

On this block there was a time when three mormon families shared the same Culdesac! (Parkers, Thomas and Mandelaires)

Here is the Eastdumfries house which was the scene of an evening of babysitting by two teenage boys. (David Morgan and Derrick Hayes)

The current Relief Society President’s House. Don't be fooled by our guide's expression, he was doubtful of the sincerity of our excitement but his spirits were soon roused at the prospect of passing the famous Dennis Hayes' house.

Laurelglen Elementary. Nine Allred children graced its halls.

Dad’s new ankle socks were noticed and appreciated by the tourist.

And now without further ado....the famous Dennis Hayes' house. According to our guide this is pretty much the Mecca of the Bakersfield walking tour.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we passed the Starkeys! Need I say more.

This is the home of the Fordhams who had the honor of being Home Taught by Roger Allred for 20 years (hence the 2 and 0 hand signs)

and this is the home of the current hometeaching family

and here is the former home of the Ross McClintock who had the honor of attending the walking tour back when it was a running tour several times a week for 15 years.
The Selkirk house. The Allred family lived here in the early 1980's and it was here where Jessica received a Glow Worm on Christmas morning when all her 3 older sisters received Cabbage Patch dolls. The fit she threw earned her a cabbage patch doll and led to her mother giving the glow worm to her cousin Melody at which point Jessica thought "Sucka!!!"

The famous Becca Petersen's house. She is nothing short of legendary.
Score!!! He found a half-used roll of electric tape!

This car passed through the hands of three Allred children before being sold to the neighbor and is occasionaly mistakenly referred to as the "Mistake" instead of the Mystique.
After all the excitement of the walking tour, a fully clothed dip in the pool seemed only fitting.
The evidence is here, you decide, is Bakersfield a tourist attraction or not? I submit that it very well could be.

Some Pictures on my Camera

So I realized that I had some pictures of things that I have done that I never posted on my blog. I thought you might be interested to see some of the things happening. Now please realize that I NEVER take pictures of many of the things that I do because I don't have any people to take pictures of and I hate the self portraits when you hold the camera yourself. So you get pictures of scenery, strangers or nothing.

This is the view from my front porch on the first snow day for NYC public schools in 10 years!! Cristi and I were so thrilled you would think we won the lottery, but one free day with no kids is JUST as good!


The day after my birthday, three friends and I went on a 50 mile bike ride through the Pennsylvania Dutch country. It was exactly what I wanted for my birthday, beautiful sunny weather, three of my favorite people and being just about as far from NYC as possible (culturally speaking)
The wide open spaces are probably not a big deal to you but to a New Yorker who is not meant to be a New Yorker, it is enough to make you cry and giggle simultaneously. Which I did until I came to a big hill which kicked the giggle right out of me. This Amish man is plowing the field with horses. NUTS (but secretly I want to run away from NYC and find a bearded Amish man and lose myself in the simple life)

My ESL class has been studying different countries around the world this whole year and to end our unit on Egypt we went to the Metropolitan Museum to see the mummies. They loved it!
Then they had to split into groups and do a project and a presentation about a country of their choice. Mom and Dad got to come and see several presentations.
I went with some young women to a trapeze school downtown. They strap you in and then you soared through the air with the greatest of ease, those daring young women on the flying trapeze. It was really cool.
I took my students to Central Park for a class on orienteering in the Ramble. They had compasses and a "treasure" map of Central park, so they had to find the treasures. For the first 30 minutes they were just so thrilled to be out of a building (there are no playgrounds in schools in NYC) that they went running around with no real aim or direction, they caught on eventually.
Then we had a great afternoon playing in the park...until one little girl became a woman for the first time (if you know what I mean) and I had to deal with a hysterical 6th grader. MOTHERS, please talk to your daughters about what is going to happen to them so they don't flip out on a field trip!!
FYI. Spring is here. This is the park across from the church, we went on a walk on a gorgeous Sunday. These are my three current roommates and a friend of ours. (Aja, Cristi, Cy and Danielle). That is the Hudson behind them and the New Jersey beyond the water.
I have some pictures of Mom, Dad, Evan, and Landon's visit. As you can see in this picture, Evan LOVED it!!