Riyadh - First Encounter

It’s hot here.

By far the most frequent remark I received—from Arabs, from Americans, from ex-pats of any stripe—upon telling them that I was moving to Saudi Arabia was: “You know it’s hot there, right?” Yeah, I kind of suspected that. Thus, I am happy to confirm this universal appraisal now that I have arrived in Riyadh. It is, indeed, hot here.

New York to Riyadh – August 10, 2014.

Lining up at the check-in counter at Saudi Arabian Airlines (or Saudia) I’m immediately struck by the number of Arab families already queued up or sitting in the lounge area, most of them already bored and laconic. I notice something that will soon become very familiar. Almost every family features a young father, a gaggle of kids from school-agers down to infants, and a mother. The father is always dressed in very casual clothes (shorts and polo or t-shirts); the kids are indistinguishable from any other youngsters from Los Angeles to Bombay with their neon tennis shoes and Hello Kitty backpacks; and the mother is swathed all in black from head to toe, and is usually veiled as well--only a pair of indeterminate eyes can be seen. The kids are energetic and loud; the father is always directing traffic and shouting orders. The wife says little.

Once on board I find my seat, 40L by the window (my preference always). In my row on the aisle sits a young Saudi woman in a navy abaya and hijab with a vacant seat between us. The woman’s husband and two youngsters (about 3 & 4) are in the row ahead. As soon as I ask the woman if I can scoot past, she and her husband visibly freak out: her eyes get as big as billiard balls with panic while he leaps out of his seat and hastily asks if I would mind switching seats with his family. He hurriedly orders the two boys into the row with the mother, leaving me in the row in front with him and a newborn baby. [Many Saudis follow the injunction that women should not be seen in public without a male relative. Being caught in the company of an unrelated male is haram: taboo.]

I didn’t get a moment’s peace for the next hour. The two boys, now in back of me, continually argue and fuss; the 4-year-old kicks my seat every two minutes, and not gently. Whenever the dad notices my seat lurch and my head snap forward with whiplash from the kicking behind, he promptly jumps up and shouts a string of harsh directives at the two rambunctious boys. The mother never makes a peep. Then the kicking ceases for all of 2 minutes before it starts up again. Finally, while Dad is off attending to the newborn, I ask the flight attendant if I can switch seats. With a friendly smile she says to take any one of a number of empty seats further back in the plane. I consciously pick a vacant seat among nothing but adults. I wonder if I haven’t gotten my first glimpse into modern Saudi parenting technique: mothers are silent and permissive, dads are authoritarian.

Saudi Nuclear Family: The thobe or abaya comes with puberty

Incidentally, if you’re wondering how flight attendants observe modest dress, on Saudia they wear a blue tunic and slacks with long white sleeves and an I-Dream-of-Genie style headdress and scarf (minus the blonde pony tail sticking out the top). 
Weirdly, sunrise comes at about 3:00 am New York time, with the sun streaming through the windows. Fortunately all the passengers wake up long enough to draw the window shades, and the plane is soon completely dark again for several hours.

I had been foretold of an interesting phenomenon to expect on the plane. About an hour before landing, younger gals who had been wearing Western clothes start to pull on abayas; a number of younger guys in shorts head to the lavatory with slacks or thobe (long white robe) in hand to change. Fun time’s over; back to the Kingdom.

Arrival – The VIP Treatment

In the long line at Customs I meet up with one of my new colleagues at Alfaisal University, Glen, a recent graduate of Portland State University. We had actually met at the Alfaisal booth at the TESOL Convention in Portland last March, when we both initially got hired. We are in line with a lot of silent, grave Pakistanis and Indians. Seeing the Saudi families with the ghostly moms in black abayas amidst the vibrant kids and relaxed dads, it’s odd when a planeload of Indians shows up, the men in either Western clothes or pastel-colored cotton matching tunics and pants, the women in bright colored saris like they tumbled out of a big tub of rainbow sherbet.

Surprisingly I sailed through Customs. I had expected to have my bags searched and to get questioned about what I was afraid would be borderline acceptable (a philosophy book, a Christmas ornament, a pair of scissors). They scanned my suitcases by x-ray and waived me on through. Just outside Customs stood a short man in white thobe and head scarf with a sign that read “Alfaisal University: Mr. John Jordan.” Check off a life-long dream fulfilled: my own driver to meet me at the airport with a sign with my name on it. (Oh, there was a sign for Glen, too—whatever.)

Driving through Riyadh for the first time, you can’t help but be struck by how new everything looks. The city had 80,000 people in 1950. It’s around 6 million today, which is double from 20 years ago. About 20% of the city seems to be under construction (and/or demolition and reconstruction); cranes poke up above the skyline everywhere. Everything is tasteful, neo-classical Arabic architecture (I think I just invented that), in all the various shades of tan imaginable: ecru, beige, camel, buckskin, eggshell, and even brown! The traffic is congested, and all the drivers seem impatient (including mine); horns are freely used to signal everything from “coming through” or  “hurry up” “watch it, buddy” or just “hey, I’m in a car”. The cars are mostly Toyotas and mostly white. Usually the billboards and even the license plates are in both English and Arabic. Glen and I use it as an opportunity to practice our Arabic number identification: o = 5, V = 7, 7 = 2, etc.

We check into the Golden Tulip Hotel, or Qasr Al-Nasiriah (note to self: qasr = hotel in Arabic). The hotel is nice, though once inside the room it’s indistinguishable from a hotel room you’d find anywhere: for all anyone would know, I could be in the Holiday Inn in Salt Lake City. I go in search of dinner outside the hotel. When I ask the manager for a recommendation, he first recommends the hotel restaurant (of course), but when I persist he relents and walks me outside with a wary look (“it’s your funeral, buddy”). He points me down the street toward some distant shops, and he cautions me to put my mobile (cell phone) in my pocket, not on a belt clip. Oh boy.

I get to the shops and little shawarma restaurants just as the call the prayer has sounded from the mosque down the street (there’s always a mosque down the street); all the shops quickly close up. Almost everyone out is not a Saudi; instead, I encounter lots of the worker class from India, Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia, Malaysia, etc. The most dangerous aspect of this little journey, by far, is crossing the street. Saudi drivers are at least as maniacal and incautious as I had been foretold. One gets the feeling if a Saudi driver were to hit you, the police would give you the ticket for damaging his car.

First day of work on Tuesday 12 August: reporting for duty at Alfaisal University.