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I'm afraid this is going to be even longer than usual, as I've been lackadaisical (it's been a good week for using good words - among other delightful specimens, I have successfully made use of "incorrigible" and "unruly", to good effect) in my approach to keeping you, my worthy followers, up to date on my adventures.
My last few days in Riyadh were a lot of fun, which I shall attempt to summarise. Most of the time, I can't sit in the front seat of a car, because it is apparently forbidden for a woman to sit next to a non-relative who's not her husband. Fortunately my good friend Richard (whom I first encountered in Riyadh, despite having both studied Arabic at Durham and having ALL the same friends) informed me that no woman of his sits in the back seat of his car, so I was permitted to sit in the passenger seat. With no hijab. Oooooo. Richard also works for Al Khaleej, and we met through Christina, whom I met through Mia, as Mia took over Christina's job in Al Kharj, south of Riyadh. Christina kindly arranged for me to join her and her 2 lovely Jordanian housemates on a trip to one of the foreigners' compounds to meet a few people and smoke some shisha, the lack of which I had been bemoaning as women aren't allowed to smoke shisha in public in Saudi. And shisha is one of my favourite Middle Eastern pastimes. At the compound we met a couple of Brits, a couple of Jordanian men, and an Egyptian guy who knew the neighbourhood I lived in in Cairo. And on the way back later in the evening all 4 of us had to sit across the back seat of the car because we weren't allowed to sit next to the driver.
Earlier that day Christina and I had been to a huge supermarket in a shopping mall, specifically to check out the gluten-free section - a luxury I had not been expecting to find in this country. But there were rice cakes galore, and many other things as well, many of which I would consider myself spoiled to find on sale at home in Somerset. If, after my summer sojourn to this place which, Toto, most definitely is not Kansas, I end up on a project in or near Riyadh, I shall go there frequently to keep myself in rice cakes and alternative flour forms (Christina reliably informs me that it's one of the few places in the whole country where you can get such delights).
Saturday morning was a little gloomy as I had no plans, and no update from the company on when they would actually get me doing something, but then within the space of half an hour I had three engagements lined up for the afternoon and evening. I met Tawqeer (a British guy who's spent the last year working in Riyadh for Al Khaleej, and is by now back in the UK) for lunch at an American restaurant, where we had enormous and delicious burgers and excellent conversation. Then in the gap before meeting my Lebanese friend for coffee, I had an email from the company saying I'd be flying to Al Jowf the following morning at 5.30, so Osama would collect me from the hotel at 3am. Off I went, with a rather sticky kind of spring in my step, for coffee and pancakes withMonther, who I'd been to the National Museum with, and we talked about several interesting things, including his experiences of the war in Lebanon and how it has affected his life. An hour and a half later we were standing outside on the pavement waiting for Richard to come and collect me, and enjoyed predicting what the mutawa (religious police) would say if they saw me being handed from one man to another. It was windy and I'd left without any pins for my hijab, so it kept blowing off and showing my hair. Tut tut. Richard and I had a noisy dinner at a steak house (well, Richard had dinner, I really wasn't hungry so just had a few prawns) and wound up the waiter quite considerably but it was all in good humour and we're pretty sure he knew that. And then it was home time to get packed and ready to go.
3am on Sunday morning and Osama was there, and feeling rather chattier than I was. Check in in at the airport was a fairly ridiculous procedure in which nothing was checked, not even my passport, I could have been any old person getting on to any old flight I wasn't booked on to. Osama left me once my baggage had disappeared, and I had plenty of time before my flight to notice that I was the only female in the whole place who retained a face, so I went to the toilet and put on my niqab, and then felt considerably less conspicuous. I sat at a distance from the nearby families and individual men, and was thankfully left well alone (pre-sunrise not being my chattiest time), but was interested that another woman clearly travelling by herself came to sit next to me. Evidently my eyes look safe. Once we actually got on to the plane, I saw there were 2 women who not only weren't wearing hijabs, but also weren't wearing abayas, and were in trousers. They didn't appear to be together, and then I ended up in the seat next to one of them. She spoke neither English nor Arabic, and looked exhausted and not very happy, and I couldn't help wondering, especially as she looked like she might be from the Philippines, why she was on her way to a small town in the north of Saudi Arabia. I'll never know, as I couldn't talk to her, but maybe in a way I don't want to know.
… and on to Jowf! Geographical clarification: Al Jowf, or Al Jouf, is the name of the province, up in the north. Sikaka, or Sakakah, or variations upon that theme, being apparently the main town in the area, and that's where the university is, too. We foreigners live on a small compound of 40 people on the edge of a small town called Gara (or Qara, if you want to be literal about it), which is about half an hour's drive from the university. On the compound there are 20 two-person villas, they're not all occupied at the moment, so we're a small community. Unfortunately there's no communal space, 10 of the villas back onto the other 10, and a high wall surrounds them all, and then a sandy road, and then a barbed wire fence. We have 12 women, and I don't know how many men as I haven't met them all yet, but there are more men than women. My housemate, Nehal, is a 28-year-old (north) Sudanese Muslim, and we get along very well. She's quite quiet, but friendly and chatty, and we've cooked for each other a couple of times already. She's been here for 2 years without going home, so is very excited about the upcoming holiday, when she will go back to Sudan for a few weeks.
At 7 o'clock every morning (Saturday-Wednesday) a bus picks up the women from outside our houses, and drives us to the women's campus of the university. We then teach 4 classes, between 8 and 12, have a couple of hours for lesson planning, photocopying, faster internet than on the compound, and then the bus takes us back again, often via a little shop which has essentials like bread, water, fruit and veg. For more substantial shopping, the bus (mixed-gender this time) goes into Sikaka 5 evenings a week, where there's some reasonable shopping to be had. No men are allowed onto the women's campus, so the minute we're in we can take off our niqabs and hijabs and abayas, and not worry about not making eye contact with passing strangers. Not that there are many strangers around - it's a pretty small place, and I think I now probably know most of the students by sight.
Today was my first day teaching (last week I was shadowing other teachers for 2 days and then helping with exam invigilation and administering oral exams). The complicated summer timetable means that rather than having my own class for the full 4 hours, which has been the case for most people up until now, I provide an hour's relief each for three other teachers and then have an hour to myself. This morning went pretty well, the girls I'm teaching are all friendly although quite chatty and not the most responsive to instructions (another time I'll talk about motivational issues for girls in Saudi) but they've been very welcoming to me so far and I don't think I'm kidding myself in thinking the lessons were productive.
Yesterday evening Rob and I went for a walk to the nearby shop, about half a mile away (Rob is a good friend from university, who's been here since last September, and has been invaluable in mentally preparing me for the insanity of what I'm letting myself in for in doing this job) to buy some dates. Women aren't allowed to leave the compound without a male escort, and have to obtain permission from the compound manager first, or apparently search parties are sent out (there's a guard on each corner of the fence). Men can just saunter off alone whenever they like without telling anyone. 5 minutes from the compound, a car pulled up next to us, a Saudi man in his white robe and red and white cloth got out, and without even waiting for Rob to respond to his greeting (being female, my role is to remain mute during male-to-male exchanges) handed us 2 bottles of chilled water, then got back into his car and drove off. I'm afraid I rather spoiled the moment by forgetting I wasn't supposed to speak and thanking the man, but I don't think he heard so our reputation as worthy guests in the country remained intact. Or it would have done, if I had been wearing my niqab as I should have been. I have issues with the niqab though, as we shall see.
Notes from under the niqab: it gets hot under there. And most of the air I'm breathing is recycled so I think I'm being cheated out of my fair share of oxygen. I must admit to feeling quite safe in it, and very left-alone most of the time, but after I've been wearing it for half an hour or so it often starts to slip and then my nose is in danger of being exposed, and then I feel rather more conspicuous. I've already had to do a couple of subtle re-adjustments in the aisles of the supermarket. One of the debatable plusses is that there's no need to bother with facial expressions, which, for someone like me who grew up constantly being told that my "relaxed" or "neutral" expression looked rather miserable and even angry, is a relief. I no longer have to make the effort of trying not to appear furious when just not thinking about anything. The flip side of this is that if I'm talking to someone I know while wearing the niqab, when I would normally rely on my facial expressions to convey my reaction to what they're saying, I now have to tell them - "I'm smiling", "I'm raising my eyebrows in surprise", "I'm frowning in puzzlement", "you're getting my giant grin - the one that so proudly shows off all my teeth and a good portion of my gums too".
One final thing. In such a ridiculously hot place (7.30pm right now, and still over 40 degrees) one might try to have a cold, or at least cool, shower. But it can't be done. My shower is pretty good, but I only use the cold tap, and even then the water is often so hot it burns me.
I shall leave you here, and by the time I next appear I might have a clearer idea of what the future holds - we're all leaving Sakaka in August as the project is closing, and after a holiday of a few weeks (during which I'm expecting to be back in Riyadh as I almost certainly won't have my Iqama - residency permit - yet, so won't be able to leave the country) we'll be moved on to a new project, but we don't know where yet.
- comments
Frances Henderson GOOD BLOG HENDERSON. I read the entire thing out loud in a Glaswegian accent (not sure why but it was fun). Gave it an interested spin. xxx
Frances Henderson *Interesting
Jonas Rye Nielse Great blog Rosy! I just started reading it and will diffidently keep on doing so ;)
Fiona Anyone still there??? I now live in Sakaka, and I am looking for this compound....I'm wondering if it still exists. Do you know how I can find it??? Thanks!!