Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Through the Looking Glass

It is definitely strange here. And I mean strange beyond the usual thrashing around associated with moving to a new place.

Anytime you move to a new place you have to learn your new phone number and new address. That's not a big problem for most of us. But I've also got a new mail box and combination, office phone, loaner cell phone (more on this in the Strange section below), badge number...I have to be ready to whip out any and all of these numbers for just about any transaction.

The compound is tightly clustered in some places, sprawled out in others. I'm learning to navigate unfamiliar streets with unfamiliar names either on foot, in a taxi, in a bus, or in a friend's car. That's a tough transition for a North American used to learning a new place by car!

have gotten a bunch of administrative and personal settling-in tasks done in just these four short days. The weekend is coming up (Thursday and Friday are the weekend in KSA) and a new friend and I (a geologist I met in orientation) are planning to make a grand shopping expedition into Al Khobar tomorrow.

Besides this geologist friend, I see other people from my orientation here and there in camp. Plus I keep getting introduced to new people who, when they see me around, introduce me to whomever they might be with at the time. And everyone is unrelentingly friendly and helpful.

This leads me to tell you about the two most important things I'm learning that are key to making this work: ask questions of everyone you meet (where to buy a TV, a couch, a mixing bowl, how to get cash, where to catch the bus, on and on)--and I do mean everyone because it is amazing how much some of these folks know--and remain patient.

The whole concept of inshallah (god willing) makes me twitchy because I am by no means a believer in the predetermination of the outcome of things such as the date and time my Ebox might be delivered. But the Saudis are in large part quite fatalistic about everything large and small. Pitching a hissy fit won't get you very far in KSA.

So now to the strange bits.




Quite a few Saudi men wear thobes to work--along with dress socks and shoes (that alone is pretty comical). If a man wears a thobe, he is often wearing a red and white checked scarf. There is apparently something like gang symbolism in the way a man folds the kaffiyeh. Some of them are elaborately twisted and folded and tossed over the shoulder--attention to detail that is strangely feminine. An equally large number of Saudi women veil from top of head to toe with only their eyes visible. So you see these flapping white and black human-sized sails everywhere. I even see women in abbayahs and head scarves on the running track around the golf course--running. In their abbayah. In 85degree temps. This wiki article has some good photos.

I take the dogs out in the morning and evening for long walks around that same golf course. By a fluke, I am nearly always out there when the calls to prayer start (around 4:30am and 7pm or so). Most mosques just play prerecorded tapes over loudspeakers. Very loud speakers. There are at least half a dozen mosques within hearing distance and the calls weave into this weird, echoing, dissonant chant. Since I am out before sunrise and after sunset, it is kind of eerie.

I can't buy a scooter or car or mobile phone until I get my iqama or work permit. Well, that's not quite true. I can buy a cell phone but I can't buy the SIM card that makes it work!

Stores are usually closed from 11am to 2 or 3 in the afternoon for noon prayers, a long lunch, and presumably a nap. You have to schedule your shopping excursions around prayers because shops close and kick your infidel butt out onto the street. Most prayer times last about 25 minutes but that could be quite an inconvenience during, say, August. During orientation, I was thoughtfully given a daily prayer schedule for 2009 in the form a little foldout wallet card. But that sort of information is available online too.

Life in the compound is a series of rules and silly administrative hoops. To get home internet, I had to get my Aramco login, go to a special site and set up a home internet password that was different from my Aramco password, then go to another site and request a second phone line. That will be installed Saturday (first day of the workweek). After that is done, I can go to yet another site and request DSL service. Then I wait. Inshallah, I'll get home internet sometime in 2009.

I'm sure I'll return to the Strange theme in future posts but I'll close this one with screen shots of my Outlook calendar showing both regular and hijrah dates (in which it is the year 1430) and my blogspot login screen.

6 comments:

seniormoments said...

Someday I can definitely see a book about your adventures. It would make fantastic reading.

Dyna, Bhumi, and Freckles have been laying in sunshine spots today. Bhumi's still an upstairs kitty, but Freckles joins him often.

Stay safe!

VAMom

Rover Mom said...

You are such a good writer Denise! Glad to hear it really is a strange new adventure. And so glad everyone is so friendly!

BC Insanity said...

OH man, that so brings back some memories for me.
I miss those mosque chants. We used it live by one a block away. I used to always walk Pik (my little dog I had) just around the afternoon prayers..... Allah Akhbar... over and over.

Had to laugh at the prayer ritual. Many times we'd be in the stores and the clerk would just walk out, throw his rug on the floor point to Mecca and stick his butt in the air in prayer. We just left and never waited for him to be done.

Oh and my favorite saying that made me twitch as well was 'Bukhra inshAllah', i.e, Tomorrow with god's will, not something you wanted to hear if you needed to have things done NOW!

Let me know when you try the cactus fruit first time, it's quite uniquely tasty.

G

Agile Jack said...

I agree you should write a book about this adventure. Make sure to fill it with phrases like, "Kick my infidel butt out onto the street."

I'm assuming you won't be walking your dogs in a full burka in July!!! (or any other month...)

Can't wait to hear more! I check every day to see if you've posted an update! It's sort of like Christmas when I see a new post. I get even more excited than when Susan Garrett posts something new!

Anne

BC Insanity said...

Ditto Anne!

G

Carol G. said...

Ditto on the book ideal.. your a great writer and like Annie I too look forward to your posts
Carol G