How is Saudi adventure going?

In a word....Great! I can see how people come here on a one year contract and three or four years later they are still here. The job is weird and funny and easy. There is nothing to worry about. What have I been worried about,...um hmm....I think just how am I going to squeeze all the world wide travel into a year! Haha...and will the Saudi government let me visit Palestine because I really want to.

It is kind of like college but without the class commitment. Everyone here is without family. So we are in this strange place and all looking for fun times. It is very similar to the beginning in Peace Corps when we were all in training and just all together before going to our separate posts. We just played a lot and hung out.

I've been getting out quite a bit. Going to parties, house parties, embassy parties, pub/restaurant parties. It feels like home. Well actually I suppose I was in America just last night. The american embassy had a party. Each of the embassies have a party pretty much monthly and you just have to get a ticket to these events. When I went to the Canadian embassy I got in and asked if it was ok to take my abaya off and the guy said, “yes, you can do whatever you want you are in Canada now!” Oh lovely! Haha. These parties are fun! Dancing late into the night and having a good crazy time followed by a late night swim with the ladies and high dive backflips!! Yup I could get used to this!

Yesterday a bunch of us went to this place called the Princess Souke. Kind of an outdoor market with used things. Our taxi driver thought we were crazy for wanting to buy used clothes. He really could not stop laughing at us and saying that only Americans would want used clothes, probably true. The South Africans were were with thought it horrid we wanted used stuff. But it was hilarious! It was pretty much what you would expect from a third world market, even though we aren't in the third world. I think we were very entertaining to the sales men in the market too, just super silly, I mean if you know me you can guess how this all went down. These sales men were just sitting in piles and piles of used clothes, super cute. It was kind of like a huge costume box of fun. This kind of shopping I can get into! But gezz I think we were there less than an hour and by the end I was exhausted, could have been the middle of the day heat.

Oh so ya when I was looking into coming here everyone talked about the heat. I haven't really said much about it. It is warm...95F on most days at least. But it just isn't really a big deal yet. I am strangely looking forward to the day it hits 120-130F, which I hear is common in the middle of the summer. What will that feel like? I hear it is like when you stick your face in an open oven....oh my!  I have been running in the late afternoon and mornings at the Diplomatic Quarters where we can take off our abayas! This has been going well so far, I need a camel backpack for water though so I don't fall over from dehydration.  I literally drink about 4 liters of water a day.  It is very dry, imagine that, in a desert.  Gezz

Oh and we went to this cultural festival like I said. There was dancing and traditional foods, etc. Actually it was kind of like being a celebrity. All these girls in full veils kept coming up to us and asking to take pictures with us! It was almost like who is checking out who....we were watching them and they were watching us. Oh what an interesting place this is.

Dating In Saudi

So this post is mostly based on observations, conversations, and reading about the dating situation in Saudi Arabia amongst Muslim youth. So if you are here and have more to add and/or correct please share! This is a very segregated society. Woah I actually think that is an understatement. There are separate places for men and women to wait inside the hospital, there are separate areas of restaurants for single men and for families and single women, there are certain days and places at the festival I just visited where woman/families could be and then separate places for single men. Oh actually three ladies and I went to this festival with a male friend and he had to run back to his car but then couldn't get back into the festival because he was presumably a single man showing up on family night! So a lady had to go back and fetch her “husband” so he would be allowed in the grounds.

Women are not meant to be uncovered in the presence of any man except their husbands and sons. Obviously this all makes it difficult for men and women to interact. So how do they meet? Hmm. Well on the extreme side of things, they write their phone numbers on their car windows hoping some lady will see it and call them....they call random numbers and hope to chat with a lady, phone roulette I suppose. I actually have a cell phone here and turn it off most of the time because I get weird middle of the night phone calls and texts in Arabic. Also social media outlets have really changed the social life for youth in Saudi Arabia, allowing them to meet and chat with people via the internet. But the problem is in such a segregated society it is very difficult to meet up. Men and women who are not married can not be in public together unless they are chaperoned by a married couple. So if these two internet would be lovers want to meet up covertly, they can maybe plan to meet at the mall. She'll be with her friends, totally covered of course and veiled head to toe in black. He'll be the one in the white throbe and the red checked head scarf, ghutrah. Maybe they will pass by each other and make eye contact for a second, having a thrill of secretly meeting each other even if just for a moment!

On the more conservative side of Saudi dating, families often choose a spouse for their children. Now like I said women can only be around immediate family. They can't even be around first cousins after maturity because these family members are fair game in the world of Saudi mating. Yup that's right, first cousins can legally marry, and often do. This has a lot to do with status and money. Keep it in the family! What are the problems with keeping genes so close and mingling? Ah an extraordinary array of genetic disorders, recessive disorders come alive. Actually now they have laws about having genetic testing before wedlock, but apparently money can buy anything....eeks.

So other than being betrothed to your cousin, more liberal families will maybe get the woman's say as to who her life partner will be. Possibly the man will see a picture of this girl, or hear good things about her. He will ask around about her. What is her family like, will she make a good loyal wife, is she ready for marriage? He will go to the father and state his interests with this man's daughter. Possibly the daughter will be consulted as to her desires or disdain for this man. But when it comes right down to it, the father is the daughter's guardian and has full legal rights to her decisions (oh man I will need to do another whole post about this issue!). In the event she agrees to this nuptial the lovely couple may be permitted to chat on the phone and get to know each other. Or if the family is very liberal they might even meet before the fated day. But always to be chaperoned.

Alright so as a quick side note. I've heard about western women who marry Saudi men. Some stories go like this, actually I have hear 3 or 4 of these and they go the same way. But for this whole post, I'm not saying this is how it is for everyone. Everyone is different and these are stereotypes that I'm highlighting for the interest of those at home. So ok western woman and Saudi man meet in the western world and he is very westernized and liberal, etc. They marry and have children. At some point he has a desire to take his family to his homeland, maybe for a short period of time even. Once they arrive to Saudi Arabia he is not the man she married. He dresses in traditional Saudi wear and forces her to cover as well. He can't have a disobedient wife. In one story that goes this way he prohibited her from eating an ice cream cone in public anymore (even when it is 130F outside!) because it is blatantly too sexy of an act to be doing in public and how dare she deface his status by being so crass. These restrictions end in divorce. However, after divorce the woman has absolutely no rights to her children. They are his. He is their guardian. The wife can leave Saudi but she will never see her children again. They will never be allowed to leave the country without the permission of their father. Obviously, these are severe cases and again everyone is different and not everyone falls into the stereotypes, just sharing what I have learned.

Enjoy your rights and freedom! Actually, I've recently been reminded of a time in my childhood when my sister and I had been visiting our grandmother with our family and my sister must have been denied something or another. In revolt of this infringement on her rights she and I put small notes all over the house that stated “IT'S A FREE COUNTRY!” I think we must have been in elementary school and were probably oblivious of the actual meaning of that statement, but still knew that it was true...like a birthright. But it is not a birthright. Not here it isn't. For now again, enjoy your freedom!

Dangerous Driving

Riding around and seeing how people drive here is one of the most frightening experiences. There are lanes in the road but it doesn't seems to matter. The drivers are fast, follow insanely close, switch across 4 lanes of traffic in 2.5 secs, brake suddenly, general aggressive and impatient driving. There is a lot of money, really nice cars, and the auto industry is not hurting for business. In a country of 25 million people 675,000 cars were sold in 2010. The car market in KSA is worth $9 Billion.

This is a country where only men drive, and it is also a country with one of the highest auto fatality rates in the world. The leading cause of death for men 16-36 is traffic fatalities. There is an average of 17 fatalities a day in the Kingdom. The research is showing that in a country that is so restricted in so many ways there are few outlets besides getting in a car and driving crazilike. Check out YouTube, crazy Saudi drivers, I hear that gives you a pretty good idea of what is going on. They do this thing called drifting where they drive quickly across several lanes of traffic at a high speed and can flip the car behind them from the wind force. This is fun? Uggh so dangerous, again refer to the fatality statistics. There are huge cement barricades everywhere to protect pedestrians. Actually, there are even barricades on the hospital grounds where I work, but really are people driving so quickly around a hospital they found cement protectors necessary? Sadly, yes. 

So Americans think we have it bad at the pump, but really we've always paid the lowest of the western countries, by far. The neighbors to the north, Canadians are paying about $5/gallon; the Brits are paying over $8/gallon, Americans are at about $3.50/gallon. While here in Saudi Arabia gas is $0.64/GALLON! Huh? Well to be fair Saudi Arabia controls a large quantity of the worlds oil, that's one way of sharing the wealth with the people of the nation.

Frolicking in the Desert!

I have been out to the deserts around Riyadh a couple of times and it is BEAUTIFUL!  I went on a Hash.  Hash House Harriers is an international organization with groups in many cities around the world.  The idea is they get together and go for a run/walk and are meant to be following the hare to the place of beer.  A past time started by the Brits.  Obviously, there was no place of beer, but there was a great hike in the desert. People hung around tailgating and grilling by their cars after the hike.  They do this every week to a different location.  Just show up at the meet up and get in a car, pretty easy! 

So this past weekend, oh the weekend here being Thursday and the holy day is Friday, I went camping in the desert!!! YES!!!  It was so fun to get out with a bunch of people and do one of my favorite outdoor activities!  22 SUVs met at a compound, about 90-100 people piled in (after we were told all the women cohorting with the men were drawing too much attention and they were going to call the national guard on us) and we all caravanned out to the desert!  The ride there was an adventure in and of itself!  Dust and sand flying all over the place, it felt like a living breathing being surrounding the cars!  Fire, grilling, general merriment, hiking, exploring, hooping, and camels, all the trimmings of an excellent first desert camping trip!

The group was expats from all over the world here in KSA to work as engineers, english teachers, wives, diplomats, and of course nurses.  Bases covered for interesting conversation!  The pictures are from the hike at the Edge of the World!!!!

Ooops, must have hit something...umm oh well, it's a company car right?

Line up of SUVs

At the EDGE of the world!!!

The Canadian Ladies

Do you see the tiny people on top?

Camel Crossing!

Billowing Sand :)