Dear Family and Friends,

Saudi Arabia being an “exotic” or different place and, of course, having very different standards for the behavior or women, it takes little prescience to suspect that you all are brimming with questions. Let’s see if I can answer a few:

Question: What am I wearing?

Legally, in public a woman must wear a black outer garment known as an abaya. Personally, I equate my abaya to a graduation robe: it is polyester, black and shapeless, it covers my shoulders and falls to my ankles. In a bid for self-respect, my abaya is a bit blingy… the sleeves and hem are embroidered and lightly silver-spangled. By some definitions an abaya should also cover one’s head. My abaya does not and nor am I required, legally, to cover my head. However, in deference to my new home’s sensibilities as well as to decrease unwanted attention, I keep my head covered with a black scarf known as a shayla.

When I stepped on to the Saudi Airlines plane in New York, I was (in my estimation) conservatively dressed in a white-striped long sleeved shirt, black slacks, and black flats. However, as other passengers took their seats and I realized that only two female passengers had both their faces and their hair uncovered, increasingly I began to feel uncomfortable. The other non-veiled woman, a serene South African woman who has lived in Saudi for over 5 years (!), sensed my nervousness and kindly dispensed advice such as “no need to put the abaya on until you arrive in Riyadh” and “if you can survive the first three months, you’ll grow to love it.” She deplaned at our first stop in Jeddah. And then I sat fastened into my seat stewing about when I should done my abaya.

Finally, I grabbed my wadded abaya, locked myself into the plane’s bathroom, and watched in the mirror as I disappeared behind flowing black robe. I couldn’t – I just couldn’t - make myself cover my head. When I self-consciously emerged from the bathroom, the lovely Saudi family sitting in front of me beamed and smiled and told me how pretty I looked in the abaya. I couldn’t help but smile. Flattery finds its way into every culture, does it not? I deplaned, went through immigration and customs without covering my head. However, that first night, when I left my hotel in Riyadh, I covered my head at the urging of the man assigned to by the Company to escort me for a dinner out. My shayla slips and slides and simultaneously frizzes and flattens my hair but I’ve kept my head covered in public ever since – with one exception. When I go running around our compound, I scandalize guards by tossing my shayla aside in favor of a black baseball cap. While I run, my abaya flaps about my ankles and causes more sweat than the actual exertion.

Understandably, I find wearing an abaya an enormous pain. I mean, it is black, it doesn’t breathe overly well, I’m constantly trying to brush away dust, and I must throw it on in almost all circumstances – even taking out the trash requires an abaya. But here’s the thing: I want – arguably, I need – another abaya that covers me from forehead to the tips of my toes. And when I acquire this abaya, I shall also buy a wahabi veil in order to cover my face. I am convinced that keeping myself fully covered will actually afford me more freedom. And I am willing to submit to further veiling for more freedom. Counter-intuitive, huh?

Question: What is daily life like?

So far, nothing here has been easy. I was told, when I first arrived, that my villa “had just been completed” – but within minutes of setting down my bags, I pulled out paper to start making a list of repairs. I couldn’t secure my front gate, there was no hot water in villa, the second bathroom stuffed up and overflowed, Internet access was intermittent (at best), and there was no gas to cook with. And soon, things got worse. Fixing the stuffed up bathroom necessitated shutting water off throughout the villa. And when water was restored, there was very little pressure, which in the end, necessitated my – finally – throwing a fit and inspiring three guys to make a special run in order to seek out and purchase a water pump. For weeks the entire villa sported a thick lair of dust but couldn’t be wiped down. There was no coffee and little food (I could eat fruit and yogurt and there were generous guys who would, upon request, pick up yummy take-out but…), and of course, no shower. It was a week before I could buy bath towels and just over three weeks before I acquired bed sheets.

Often, it has been easy to regard these issues as challenges to my ingenuity and instinct for survival. But, of course, sometimes these issues feel like intolerable problems. I teeter back and forth between these two feelings.

We teach Saturday through Wednesday. Just after the sun rises over the horizon, men and women together board a bus that (is supposed) to depart at 7 am. It never leaves on time; there are always stragglers. We women are driven to our campus first. We don’t really get a lunch break and we work from our time of arrival until 2:30 pm. Sometimes we go food shopping or run to the bank after work, but we are happiest when we get picked up on time and simply driven back to our compound. Work is exhausting.

I was the 7^th female teacher to arrive… and my welcome was nearly overwhelming. Not because my new colleagues were particularly happy to meet me per se but because they had been working double the time stipulated in the contract in circumstances far from ideal. More than once, I got the feeling that I had walked into the newest set of Survivor (the Saudi version). Having another body to share the workload with was very welcome and I began substitute teaching on my second day. Not long after I arrived, 3 more female Americans touched down. We now have 10 female teachers but there continue to be class assignment and resources challenges. Normal teaching is exhausting; our situation requires double the patience.

Question: What am I eating?

According to my students, Saudi Arabia is famous for a dish called kapsa. As I have yet to actually order or eat in a Saudi restaurant, I can only report that this is apparently a barbequed piece of meat with lots of spices. Accounts vary about whether or not I’ve actually eaten the dish. During my first week and then some without gas, a kind neighbor could be prevailed upon to bring us well-spiced bbq chicken or bbq fish served with enormous quantities of too-oily rice, mouth-watering flat bread (often accompanied by hummus), tabbouleh, and my favorite part (truly!) whole bags of peppery watercress (to be eaten like a salad). Apparently watercress is a… male stimulant here… but I can neither confirm nor deny this rumor.

When we finally got gas, we did not have water. When we finally got gas plus water, I began to stock the kitchen. I had brought some basics from the States: a small Belgique pot that goes on the stove or in an oven, my Global Cooking knife, a used rolling pin, a can opener, a coffee grinder + French press, and my copy of The Joy of Cooking. Our kitchen came only with a few plastic plates, a few pieces of silverware, a few glasses, a carafe, and a metal tea kettle. Slowly, I’ve added a few non-stick pans, a plastic mixing bowl, a pie pan, and just the other day, I purchased a heavy-bottomed pot for cooking pasta.

As far as food goes, I find it easier to shop in Saudi Arabia (versus Korea). I suppose this to be because Saudi Arabia doesn’t seem to have a strong food sensibility and it imports everything. Fresh vegetables such as carrots and onions (white or red only) and potatoes tomatoes and zucchini are easy to locate – but there is no celery. I have been aching for celery so bad I dreamed of finding celery in a secret room in our nicest grocery store! *sigh* I am still working on a substitute for celery. Anyway, I can purchase dark Turkish coffee, dairy products, some spices, lots of nuts, a decent number of baking supplies, super-sugary cereals, and millions of olives. My first and second attempts at cooking were bland, bland. However, as I accumulate more ingredients, my cooking is improving.

Question: How are things, really?

For now, things are ok. Truly…

Oh, goodness! Literally, just as I type this, there is an unnaturally loud sound of rushing water coming from our second bathroom. Oh, this is not good… But have I answered some of your questions? Do you have other questions? Please do send them via comments or e-mail… although the remainder of today will be frittered away upon fixing this latest water problem.

So, yes, truly, things are ok but nothing in my world is easy. And things’ll be better tomorrow… “In šāʾ Allāh.”

Fondly yours,

Laura

Pretty spices...

A view of Sakakah (my new hometown).

Dear Family and Friends,

In my world, calendars hold less sway and it feels as if time itself has changed. Promises in Saudi Arabia are never without an “In šāʾ Allāh” (pronounced /in sha lah/), meaning “If it is God's will.” And I must say, very often it feels that God withholds his will or is, at the very least, very slow on dispensing it, blackening a beautiful phrase.

And no longer are the days of the week days of the week… well, in the sense that our work week is Saturday through Wednesday. We Westerners do not find the shift itself confusing – after all, time has changed – but we do find this problematic in our every day language. We often refer to Wednesday as Friday or must clarify whether we are talking about giving a quiz on Friday or, actually, Wednesday. Confusing.

As my sense of time has altered, it is little wonder that I was shocked on Wednesday morning to realize that that our Thanksgiving holiday was on the morrow. I mean, for weeks you all could hardly miss that it the month of November with its kitschy paper turkeys and wetted fall leaves. But for us here in the Northern Saudi desert, dates – and indeed the entire autumn season - elude us. And the realization that a holiday was nearly upon us jolted me into action.

After both listing food and people, I walked from villa to villa, soliciting interest in a celebratory potluck. Interest was nearly universal. And so just before sunset on Thanksgiving, we placed two dining room tables and 14 chairs diagonal through my living room. We used my desk as a buffet table, aligning roast chickens stuffed with homemade stuffing, pressed smoked turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, chop-chop salad, green beans, corn sliced from the cob, butternut squash dumplings, fruit salad, mashed and curried butternut squash + sweet potato, a Southern pea salad, and an amazing dried apricot chutney. Soon fourteen strangers living in a strange situation took up their forks and feasted.

For dessert, the men hand-whipped cream (!!!!!!) which was then coupled with sweetened sliced strawberries while I pulled out coffee, softened vanilla ice cream, and two butter-crust apple pies.

Our Thanksgiving was just what a thanksgiving ought to be: a celebration of life. I wish the same to - for - all of you.

With love, always,

Laura

A glimpse of our feast after fourteen hungry people had had a pass at the buffet table. The white bowl contained sliced watermelon, the foil-covered plate butternut dumplings, the blue bowl sliced corn, and the pan green beans...

There are neither pumpkin nor pecans to be had here
and there were no complaints about apple pie!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Dear Friends and Family,

The mere process of obtaining a Visa in order to enter Saudi Arabia was difficult.

Actually, that is a vast understatement. And this from a lady who has, at various times and with various amounts of drama, has been through the process of acquiring a sum total of seven Visas. For example, I lingered for nearly a week in Kathmandu, waiting in pre-sun rise queues for my Visa to enter India. While on the other hand, my South Korean Visa was a bigger headache for my Father than it was for me. He had to search through fifteen boxes of my stateside personal effects in order to dig out my original university diploma as well as twice visit the actual university in order to acquire a sealed transcript, before FedExing the lot to Seoul. And it used to seem that no Visa process could be more onerous than my latter Chinese Visa, which took one outright rejection, numerous phone calls, two weeks of generosity from Daegu friends, my passport returning to the States without me, my sister endangering her then-new job to personally visit the San Francisco consulate, and a painful sprawl for me while trying to catch the Korean delivery man.

The Saudi Arabian Visa process cast all other Visa acquisition cast all other processes to shame. Paperwork up the ying-yang was necessary along with calling a contact in Saudi multiple times for under-defined reasons. A battery of pricey medical tests was required (paid out of pocket as I do not have health insurance in the States) along with verifying my UW diploma, writing letters, acquiring letters and multiple passport pictures. One day, I ended up rushing to the State capitol in order to obtain a properly sealed police report.

And the paperwork turned out to be the easy part! Inexplicably, the Company delayed sending its original sealed contract to me. When the contract arrived over two weeks after it was promised, I overnighted the Visa application paperwork to Washington DC. Only to discover that both the Cultural Mission as well as the Embassy had closed one week early for the following week’s holiday marking the end of Ramadan. After a three weeks and two day wait, part of my paperwork was duly processed and shipped from the embassy in Washington DC to the consulate in LA, who should’ve pasted a Visa into my passport. Instead, the LA consulate shipped my paperwork back to me – minus a Visa. I then had to re-ship my passport back to WDC and wait another week. Eleven weeks into a process reputed to take a few weeks, I received my Visa. Already beyond frustrated, I couldn’t even summon a, “hooray!”

So, imagine my reaction, two days later, while standing at the airline counter in Seattle Tacoma International airport, when the American airline told me that my Saudi Arabian Visa was no good.

Let’s just say that I was nearly able to fly myself to Saudi Arabia.

In the end, I was able to board a flight from SeaTac to JFK. With hours to wait before my next flight, I caught a train to the City and walked through heavenly autumnal rain to Central Park. The weather was gray and I got all wet – but I didn’t care a jot. I anticipated – correctly - imminent rain starvation.

Checking into my flight to Riyadh, was much easier than pie. Saudi Arabian Airlines didn’t so much blink at my Visa. After 14 hours in the air and a stop in the coastal city of Jeddah, our plane touched down in Riyadh. Feeling more nervous than I can ever recall, I shuffled through immigration, where an officer confiscated my passport and handed it to a properly dressed Saudi man who introduced himself as Siad and led me, and another American woman who had also just arrived (we hadn’t spotted each other on the plane), easily led us through Customs and then to a car. And from the car, we were handed back our passports, taken to a hotel, where I spent two shut-in nights before boarding yet another plane to my new home, the province of Al-Jouf.

Al-Jouf’s airport is teeny tiny… and it was easy to spot the male colleague who drew the unlucky job of picking me from the airport at 7:00 am. We drove for a few minutes, made a few turns and soon I found myself and my suitcases inside an obviously new and super-dusty, “villa” behind a single, seven foot concrete wall.

Welcome to my world.

Love,

Laura

Autumn in New York... and there is no need to wonder,
why it seems so inviting.

In Saudi Arabia, while not all roads lead to Makkah (aka Mecca),
all signs do point to the Kabbalah.

Villa #19 - aka my home sweet home in Saudi Arabia.

Dear Family and Friends,

And so it begins. Again. I’ve again begun adventuring. But this time I am in the Middle East. More particularly, in Saudi Arabia.

Before I departed the States, upon my breaking the news that I was going to teach English at a university in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia, inevitably I would elicit a swift intake of breath and a “Really?”. This shock, repeated over and over, must I suppose, stem from the question of truly what do we know, what do we really know about Saudi Arabia?

Oil. Obviously. We imagine obscene oil wealth coupled with sand dunes and tents and camels and Bedouins. We know that Islam and its holy cities of Mecca and Medina are thriving in Saudi Arabia. Women, muffled head to toe in black and segregated in every aspect of life, are, we believe, a human rights issue here. We’ve seen pictures of the Saudi royal family and heard rumors of exploits… And of course, Saudi Arabia terrifies us because we know Islam parlayed into terrorism. Fifteen of the nineteen September 11^th hijackers were Saudi.

I’ve been here for just over three weeks and I have yet to collect more than fractured impressions. Like kaleidoscope pieces, understanding, mores, and landscapes shift and twist. So far, a complete picture eludes me.

A few weeks ago, a male colleague and I were waiting for our ride home from a grocery store. We were standing next to each other, he in perfectly acceptable Western dress while I was properly attired in the strictly required women’s long, black robe-like garment known as the abaya with my hair, now often mussed and unruly due to the constraints of keeping my head covered, was tucked under a black scarf. A youngish Saudi man stalked by us, disdainfully calling over his shoulder, “NOT AMERICA!” before disappearing into the night.

My colleague and I blinked. And laughed, exchanging, “Uh, duh!!” remarks. At every moment of every day, we are in no doubt that we are in Saudi Arabia.

For the record, that has been the only overt disapproval that I’ve encountered regarding my – our - presence here. And of course, that Saudi was right. I am not in America. I have indeed temporarily traded our hard-fought equality in the eyes of the law along with my freedom of dress, my freedom of movement, and my freedom of speech in exchange for in-depth knowledge of an Islamic country and a financial foundation for graduate school.

I mention this at the outset because now that I’m in Saudi Arabia, there are issues with my blogging. You see, in the past on this blog, I have preferred to share the different, the interesting. I have preferred to write as a conduit for all of you – rather than report on me, myself, and I. I prefer to assess well and write fairly, avoiding stereotypes and exposing not-quite-usual perspectives.

However, here, the web is monitored. As I prefer not to actively excite the notice of sensors, out of necessity, this blog is going to be self-censored. It is going to reflect my experiences but it will not stray from neutral or positive. Therefore, it will not, of course, tell the entire story.

As before, this blog is posted at http://dawnrevisited.blogspot.com and I will e-mail it from Gmail. Also, as I am now experiencing an area that we so little understand, please, please help me, help my perspective and my writing by posting comments or e-mailing me with questions.

And so it begins. Again.

More from me soon.

Love,

Laura