The Camels Are Not Amused

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you combined the size and strength of a horse, the endurance of a mule, and the haughty detachment of a llama? Sure you have. Who hasn’t? Today I learned the answer – you’d get a camel.

Riding a camel is pretty much de rigeur for anyone visiting the Middle East, so it was definitely on my to-do list. During our orientation at the hospital, I struck up a conversation with one of the new Saudi nurses, a very friendly guy named Hussein, who offered to show me and another Western expat, Paolo, around Riyadh and to take us to the camel souk (bazaar). So on Wednesday night (which is like Friday night here, since the weekend is Thursday and Friday, which is like Saturday and Sunday – confused yet?) Hussein picked Paolo and me up in his big S-class Mercedes to give us a tour of the city.

Riyadh is huge. Not huge in the sense of New York or Chicago - you know, towering skyscrapers, streets like concrete canyons, etc. That's not Riyadh. In fact, compared to most big Western cities the Saudi capital has a very low skyline, with few buildings taller than nine or ten stories. But in terms of sheer area Riyadh puts New York or Chicago or Boston to shame. Since it's situated in the middle of a desert which is, for all intents and purposes, endless, Riyadh doesn’t suffer from the shortage of land that has forced so many Western cities to build vertically. It's more like Las Vegas or Phoenix – just spreading out into the landscape in every direction. On the outskirts of the city are the bare bones of new neighborhoods, just block after block of empty roads, curbs, and streetlights waiting for new houses to be built. They won’t have to wait long. Cranes dot the cityscape like dandelions on a spring lawn. New buildings seem to be going up everywhere you turn. Riyadh is expanding exponentially.

A Riyadh resident told me that the city stretches 100 kilometers east to west and 60 north to south. Like all Americans, I’ll be deep in the cold, cold grave before I’ll use the metric system, so I converted those measurements into actual numbers: 60 miles east-west and 36 north-south. Based on what I’ve seen that's conservative. The city seems to stretch on forever.

Two of the more recent additions to the city’s skyline are the Faisaliah and the Kingdom Tower, the only true skyscrapers in Riyadh. Both are super-sleek and super-modern looking. The Faisaliah, which is right across the street from my apartment building, looks something like a giant, metallic pyramid with a ball wedged into the top. The Kingdom tower, about a mile or so up the road, is surmounted by two points that arc upwards from the center and are connected by a kind of bridge, leaving the building with a hole in the top. Some people have jokingly pointed out that the two buildings look like a giant carrot and a giant peeler. Others – less charitably – say they look more like a colossal penis and vagina. Hmmm. Paging Dr. Freud…

After the tour Hussein took us to a traditional Saudi restaurant, where we took off our shoes (good thing my weekly foot washing was the night before) and sat on the floor with cushions. We ate kabsa, a traditional dish made up of chicken and seasoned rice, which is absolutely delicious. It was accompanied by two side dishes that I couldn’t identify, but which were equally fantastic. One tasted a little bit like eggplant lasagna, and the other was something close to rice pudding. And the sheer volume of food they brought, for only three people, was staggering. Americans have nothing on Saudis for lack of portion control.

Our waiter was a guy from Yemen who was so excited to meet a real American that he asked to have his picture taken with me. He made me promise to print out a copy and send it to him so he could hang it up. I’m starting to get used to that kind of reaction. Children, especially, seem to be fascinated by me. With my blond hair, blue eyes, and pale complexion I must look like an albino to them. A lot of them stare. And when they find out that I’m an American it just adds to the mystique. Maybe they’re just surprised that I’m not wearing cowboy boots and carrying a gun.

The next day we went to see the camels. Here’s the thing about camels: they make it very clear that, while they tolerate living among humans, they in no way approve of us. In fact, the standard camel expression is something between polite disinterest and downright contempt. We will carry you across the desert, they seem to be saying, but we will never like you. They were curious, and would often come right up to my camera, but when I tried to pet one it began braying in a tone that reminded me of Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes. "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”

I was surprised to learn that camels come in many colors, from white to black and pretty much everything in between. I'd only ever seen brownish tan ones, the color of my camel hair blazer (hey, I wonder if that's where the name comes from?). Hussein, who’s father raised camels, told us that the white ones are usually the most expensive, fetching upwards of 300,000 riyals (about $80,000) at auction. That’s a lot of money for an animal that can barely stand to be around you. But they are an absolute necessity for living in the desert, and, while modern Saudis no longer need them as a tool for survival, they remain an important status symbol. The number of camels a man owns directly correlates to his level of wealth and success.

To mount a camel you climb on its back, right behind the hump, while it's squatting down. Then you grasp the thick, wooly hair on the hump and hold on for dear life while it stands up. The whole process is accompanied by a sort of bored resignation on the part of the camel. You can almost hear it sighing.

The camel I rode was a 10-year-old female named Hawani, which translates as something like “sweetheart.” Since her distaste for me and my kind was evident from the start, I can only assume that the name was meant to be ironic. Like when a fat guy is called “Tiny.” Her owner was from Sudan, and the two of them, man and camel, seemed to have settled into the kind of relationship you often see in couples who’ve been married for a long time: a mixture of interdependence, familiarity, and mutual indifference.

Hawani dutifully trotted me around and deposited me back down to ground level on command. All the time she and the other camels eyed us with disdain. Earlier Hussein had told us that camels, despite their reputation, rarely spit at people. From what I’ve seen, they probably don’t think we’re worth the effort.

An Evening With Mo & Mohammed

Hospitality is a big part of Saudi culture. A really big part. You’ve heard of “Southern hospitality?” Not even close. Compared to a Saudi welcome, Southern hospitality is the equivalent of a kick in the nuts.

Case in point: On November 4th, just three days after arriving, we (I and my fellow expat friends Lucien and Dave) were exploring the city, trying to get the lay of the land. We came across what would probably be described as a nightclub at home, except that since there’s no drinking or mixing of genders here, there really isn’t any point in having nightclubs. Whatever it was, the entrance looked like it had been made from a gigantic dinosaur vertebra. Lucien was curious and darted inside to look around. (At this point I should explain that Lucien – tall, handsome, charming, and French – has absolutely no inhibitions about striking up conversations with total strangers or wandering into anyplace that piques his curiosity. It’s a trait that I, as an introverted New England WASP, admire and envy.) The interior of the place turned out to be as interesting as the exterior. It looked like a tastefully decorated cave made of giant bones, all indirectly illuminated in an eerie electric blue. Sort of Pottery Barn meets the Flintstones, but with mood lighting. Very chic.

The guy at the front counter didn’t speak English, so he motioned for us to wait and disappeared up the stairs. A few minutes later a large man in long white thobe and red-checked ghutra appeared. When we explained that we were new to the country and had simply been curious about the place, he broke into a huge grin, motioned us to follow him, and boomed, “Come in, come in, you are my guests,” in excellent English.

It turned out that this was a private club, something like a combination old-fashioned gentleman’s club and restaurant. Our host was named Mohammed, but he insisted that we call him Mo. He took us back into the private VIP area, which was decorated with plush, low-set furniture and an eclectic mixture of stuffed animals and bric-a-brac, much of it with an American western theme. He introduced us to his friend, a tall, very dark man, also in thobe and ghutra, and also named Mohammed. (By now you may be thinking that everyone in Saudi Arabia is named Mohammed. You would be right. Or at least very close to it. Mohammed is an extremely common name, and, in fact, if you don’t know a man’s name it is common to simply call him “Mohammed.” Sort of like the way an American might call a stranger “buddy.”)

For the next two hours Mo and Mohammed plied us with rich Saudi treats and told us about Saudi Arabia. Well, Mo did. Mohammed rarely spoke, but laughed and reinforced Mo’s stories in a manner that made me think of Ed McMahon sidekicking for Johnny Carson. Heeeeeere’s Mo!

This encounter with Mo was our first evidence that maybe things weren’t as strict in the Kingdom as we’d been led to believe. He certainly didn’t talk the way I imagined a Saudi talking. His speech was frank and funny and laced with English expletives. He told us that the Mutawwa (religious police) had no legal right to harass Westerners and that if they attempted to do so we should just tell them to “go fuck themselves.” He talked about partying in Bahrain (the neighboring country, just across a causeway, where alcohol is not only legal but apparently encouraged) and his desire to live in a two-room hut on the beach in Ibiza (“In one room I eat, in the other I sleep and fuck”). He told us about smuggling a bottle of Johnny Walker past Saudi airport security, and about the many wealthy women he knew who drove cars in spite of the restriction. From time to time he would aim a friendly little barb at Mohammed for being a Bedouin (a native tribesman), at which Mohammed would invariably laugh self-effacingly. What’s a little casual racism between friends? Just like chillin’ with my niggaz back home.

Before parting, Mo gave us his telephone number and told us to call him if we needed anything. It wouldn’t be the last time. Remember the TV show Cheers? There was a line in the opening theme, “Where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.” That’s Saudi Arabia. Except they don’t always know your name. In fact in many cases they have difficulty pronouncing it.

But they are always glad you came.

Mad Dashes & Machine Guns

Passing through Saudi customs turned out to be much less of a production than I had anticipated. Whether this was because it was late or because we were a large group or because we were met by hospital officials I don’t know. But most of us just sailed through security. A quick look at the passport, a few stamps, a scrawl of exotic-looking, indecipherable writing, and that was it. The guy minding the x-ray machine asked me in a sort of languid, disinterested manner to open one of my bags, whereupon he glanced into it and waved me on. I had heard horror stories about people’s luggage being scrutinized with microscopic obsessiveness, or being detained for seemingly no reason, and possibly these things do happen, but fortunately I had no problems at all.

King Khaled airport is a masterpiece of modern Arabian architecture. From it’s vaulted ceilings to it’s inlaid marble floors to it’s glittering fountains, the whole place conveys a feeling of wealth and opulence that befits a country possessing the world’s largest reserves of the world’s most valuable natural resource.

And here, at last, was the real Saudi Arabia. Men dressed in the long white garments (called thobes) and red-checked headdresses (ghutras), women swathed in all-concealing black robes (abayas), the sound of Arabic, so guttural and alien to American ears, being spoken all around. Yup, this is the place.

We were greeted by representatives of the hospital, who collected our bags and piled us into a large white bus for the trip back into Riyadh proper. I didn’t get to see much of the city on the way, because the bus’ windows were heavily tinted (a precaution against the relentless Arabian sun) and nearly impossible to see through at night. Not that I would have seen much even without the tint. Saudis, it turns out, like to drive fast. At the speed the bus was traveling – somewhere between “holy crap!” and Warp Factor 9 – the scenery would have been little more than a blur anyway.

Twenty minutes later I was shown into my hospital-provided apartment in a nine-story building in the Olaya district. Now, "Olaya" isn't really an address – more like a general reference point. It turns out that there are no addresses as we know them in Saudi Arabia. Buildings aren’t numbered. In fact, many of the streets in Riyadh don’t even have names. It makes finding things a challenge, to say the least. And address listings are pretty interesting. If you look up a business in the Riyadh telephone directory, for example, it will list the location as something like “Olaya Street, across from Al Khozama Center.” So, basically, to find anything in the city, you have to know where everything else is.

Olaya 6 is something of an anachronism. It was built in the 1970’s, and with its marble floors, high ceilings, and heavy oaken doors it’s easy to see that it was once a hell of a place. The problem is that it never really moved past 1979. The appliances seem to be the original ones installed during the Carter Administration, and, while everything works okay, it has the general air of The Building That Time Forgot. It’s like finding an old Abba LP tucked away in the bookshelf – once really cool, but now just dated.

The Olaya district itself is the commercial heart of the city and very posh. Right across the street is the sleek, ultra-modern Faisaliah tower, one of the jewels of Riyadh. So our building, surrounded by barbed wire and concrete barricades, is kind of an eyesore. These are precautions taken for the safety of the Westerners, although it hardly seems necessary. A few years back there was quite a bit of tension after several compounds were bombed, but things have quieted down and loosened up quite a bit since then, according to those who have been here for a while. Nevertheless, there is only one entrance point to our building, and it is guarded round the clock by a contingent of Saudi military. There’s even a machine gun nest. Granted, it’s manned by the most bored-looking group of guys this side of a “Vagina Monologues” audience, but it’s still a machine gun and therefore totally freaking cool. I’ve made friends with two of the guys who arrived with me, and together we’ve been chatting with the guards and generally making nice, so hopefully it’s only a matter of time before they let us take pictures of ourselves manning the machine gun a la Rambo.

I wonder if they’ll let me shoot it?

Touchdown!

My first impression of Saudi Arabia was that they sure have one hell of an airline. The flight from London to Riyadh on Saudi Arabian Airlines was a lot more pleasant than the one from Boston to London on American. Bigger seats. Better food. Free headphones (okay, they were the type of headphones that were common around 1986, but still, they were free). They even passed out warm, moist towels at the end of the flight. I know that this is supposed to be a sign of ritzy service, but I have to admit that I’m never entirely sure what I’m supposed to do with it. Call me old fashioned, but I was raised to believe that the towel is only supposed to be wet after you use it.

The guy sitting beside me was a Saudi. He didn’t fit the image that I had in mind. He was dressed in trendy clothes that would not have looked out of place on the cover of GQ, and he had that slightly-tousled/slightly-spiky haircut favored by male models. The overall effect was sort of “Queer Eye For The Arab Guy.”

His name was Abdulrahman. He was a student in Scotland, and he was returning home for a holiday. I have to say that he was exceedingly pleasant and welcoming, and spent a long time telling me about his country. Some of what he said surprised me. For example, I had expected to encounter a strong, possibly even oppressive, air of religious strictness. Not so, according to Abdul (as he insisted I call him). In fact, he said, in recent years the authorities had come to regard anyone who was overly zealous in their display of religiosity with suspicion. Even the dreaded Mutawwa (religious police) had lost much of their authority.

As we approached Riyadh, Abdul gave me his phone number and email address and insisted that I get in touch with him so that he could give me a tour of the country. I had read that hospitality is a big part of Saudi culture, but even so I have to admit that his warmth and willingness to open up to a perfect stranger was something I didn’t expect. Granted, it’s entirely possible that it was all a ploy to lure me into some kind of weird sadomasochistic sex dungeon, but I don’t think so. Besides, what are the odds of that happening to someone twice?

As the plane banked down over King Khaled airport, I got my first glimpse of the place that was to be my home for the next year. Out of the blackness, the lights of Riyadh twinkled like stars as far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon. The city appeared to stretch on forever like some gossamer blanket spread out over the desert.

The plane touched down with a thud, and Abdul reached over, shook my hand, and said, “Welcome to Saudi Arabia.”

This shit just got real.

Almost Halfway There

You know how every time you have to take a trip somewhere everything works out perfectly and there are no problems at all? No? Really? Good, I was afraid I was the only one.

People like to wax poetic about the romance and adventure of traveling. In fact, there are entire sections at bookstores devoted to it. It’s all a Big Lie. OK, sure, it’s exciting and interesting to see exotic places and all that, but the act of traveling itself just plain, flat out sucks. Airport hassles, cramped quarters, food that stretches the definition of the word “edible” to its very limits. Sure, they may seem like nothing more than a series of petty inconveniences, but taken together they become a colossal pain in the ass that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Well, alright, maybe on my worst enemy. But that bastard deserves it. (If you’re reading this now – you know what you did. I’d watch my back if I were you.)

As I write these words I’m sitting on the plane to London, the first leg of the trip to Saudi Arabia. Of course, the words aren’t being typed directly onto the blog, because although modern science is capable of allowing nerdy guys in Texas to remote-control toy cars on the surface of Mars, it has not yet figured out a way to enable us to connect to the Internet on a plane. If only there were some sort communications system on the aircraft that enabled contact with the outside world. And what if computers could somehow be made to tap into that system without wires – “wireless,” if you will – and connect to the Web? Ah, what a mad dreamer I am!

So I’m using a word processor. Once I land at Heathrow I will actually be able to post the entry. The upshot is that I have the opportunity to edit more thoroughly than usual, so you, gentle reader, may enjoy an even higher quality of wit and cutting social commentary from me than that to which you have become accustomed. Also there’ll be no tpyos.

My original intent was to spend the flight watching downloaded movies on my laptop, but that plan was thwarted by the Apple corporation. You see, I recently upgraded to their new operating system, and as a result I have to re-authorize the computer (whatever that means) before I can watch any of the videos I’ve purchased from iTunes. This “authorization” has to be done online. And, as we explored two paragraphs ago, “online” doesn’t exist at 36,000 feet. Well played, Apple. Well played indeed.

Oh, did I mention the screaming baby in the seat in front of me? Let’s just say it’s a little distracting. You could simulate the effect by putting a cat in a blender, turning it on, and then trying to write a letter to a friend while sitting beside it. (By the way, I am in no way advocating the torture of cats. Unless you happen to have a toothless dog who likes cat frappes. But only then.)

Well, according to the in-flight map we’re just to the east of Newfoundland. Only 4,000 miles to go! To the halfway point, that is.