Locusts and Al-Hassa

THE LOCUSTS ARE COMING...THE LOCUSTS ARE COMING!!!

My father-in-law used to tell us about how difficult life used to be before oil. Al-Hassa, being an agricultural city, could be dessimated by a locust invasion before modern and efficient trade with areas outside the city were established. When asked how they coped once all their crops and food were consumed by the locusts he said, "we'd eat the locusts".

YUM!

A Dust Documentery

written on the steps to my house in dust: "I would rather shovel snow"

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I spent a fair amount of time in my youth raking leaves, mowing the lawn, and shoveling snow. Living in the Great Lakes region meant I was familiar with the term "Lake-Effect Snow" which basically means that you can be sitting in 60F sunny weather at noon, only to have a foot of snow dumped on your head that night. As backbreaking as shoveling wet snow can be, at least it doesn't infiltrate every nook and cranny INSIDE your home.

The dust in the above picture didn't stop at my doorway...nor is it stopped by cabinet doors and closed windows. When a dust storm hits, every surface of EVERYTHING in a house must undergo dust removal. Every shelf, every piece of furniture, every dish in your cupboard, and your kids stuffed animals all have a fine layer of reddish dust on them. Normal dusting in this country is a b***h even without the dust storms and daily dust removal is a must during the winter when it’s windy.

The worst experience with the dust in this country came when I was pregnant with EttaMae and went into labor. When I was certain I would be giving birth that day, I decided to clean up my home to keep my mind off of the pain and to make sure that my house was clean to return to after coming home from the hospital. I started cleaning at 9am and didn't stop until after 3pm when I finally had to go to the hospital. I cleaned every bathroom, every floor, every dish, and every bit of laundry. I only stayed in the hospital less than 24 hours and returned home the next day after noon. During the night, a dust storm had hit and coated everything in my apartment with a layer of dust. I returned, physically exhausted from the birthing process to this: all my clean dishes had to be rewashed, the clean clothes on the line were coated with dust as well as the clothes in my cabinet, my sparkling bathrooms turned into muddy messes, and the floors all had footprints through the dust...

...I cried

Wearing either black or white is also a pain when one leaves the house. Anyone who lives in an area where road-salt is used can sympathize with the smudges on your arm or butt as you ever-so-slightly brushed across the side of your car which unbeknownst to you, left your clothes branded for the rest of the day. I've been washing my abaya after each trip out, no matter how brief the excursion. The dust is dangerous for drivers too, as Emiratis are being warned.

Our heads ache, our chests burn, and our eyes are crusty from the dust. But at least it’s not hot yet, right? We should count our blessings, no matter how dusty they are.

And later that day

I went to give EttaMae her bath at night and found this mess...
I wrote "The Bathroom" in the dust.

Keep in mind that this is after only one day.

The Street of DOOOOOOOOOM!

(Mission Impossible theme music playing)

My mission: Cross the "Street of Doom" with 2 kids, a baby, and the maid without getting plowed over by a lunatic.
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Last year I was delighted to learn that the new American friend I just met lived in my neighborhood. If I stand in the street outside my house, I can see hers. I thought it would be great, we could walk back and forth to each others houses and this whole messy issue of finding a ride wouldn't interfere in our plans. There's only one problem, there is a major street that runs between us that may as well be the Berlin Wall running through Al-Hassa for how it keeps our two families apart.

This street, which has now been dubbed "The Street of Doom" by my friends, is four lanes wide in each direction, brand spankin new pavement and a long clear stretch of road which is conducive to speeds not seen outside of the Indy500. It's not really a highway; the patch that runs by my house has a roundabout at one end, a traffic light at the other and is only a fraction of a mile in actual distance. For the most part this street isn't very busy. It's easily navigable in the sparse traffic of the scorching hot broad daylight however, it becomes increasingly dangerous as twilight descends and the heedless youth of the country rouse from their daytime slumber to inflict nocturnal vehicular chaos.

Although my friend and I both acknowledge the danger this street could possibly pose, we were perplexed, amused, then touched by how similar our husbands reactions were to the thought of us crossing this street on foot with our children. My friend and I are both mature, both drivers, and are of sufficient intelligence to cross streets unscathed. However, both of our husbands prefer driving us across the street rather than letting us walk.

Yes, you read it correctly, they both want to drive us across the street!

At first I was a bit dismayed. Initially my reaction was, "You don't think I'm intelligent enough to manage crossing a street for God's sake?!"

"No, it has nothing to do with YOU, it's everyone else that's stupid!", DD tried to explain to me.

After a while, my friend and I started to look at it as a chivalrous gesture and thought it rather cute that our husbands would fret about us so. And besides, I'd rather DD drive me anyway if the truth be told. It's damn hot out there during daylight hours and there's no way I'm crossing that street at night wearing an ALL BLACK abaya which assures my invisibility to already deficient drivers. I might as well sew a bulls eye to my butt first.

The Ayjooza* News Network: Faster and More Accurate Than Al-Jazeera?

Before leaving America to come and live in Saudia, I met a woman from my husband's neighborhood in Al-Hassa who'd come as a travelling companion for a Saudi princess. During a pizza party with the princess, we chatted for a bit. This woman from the other side of world already knew all my business before she'd even stepped on the plane. At this point, I hadn't yet met my in-laws in person and this woman wasn't even related to my husband's family nor was she a friend of a family member and hadn't known in advance that she'd be meeting me. So, how on earth did she already know so much about me?!

You know you're a Hasawia (female Hasawi) when you know who your new neighbor is, what their dirty laundry is, and any and all gossip associated with them before they've even moved in.

Information passes through old Hasawi neighborhoods at a dizzying speed. This may be the reason that basic DSL connections are still under 1mg in the country…old women's wagging tongues far exceed the download speed of even the most modernized server so, why upgrade? Every weekday, there's a long-standing social tradition in the older neighborhoods. Old ladies file out of their houses after 'Asr prayer, sometimes armed with plastic baskets holding vacuum thermoses of hot tea and coffee and a few jingling glass tea cups as they walk to visit other old ladies in the neighborhood. The reason I say "old ladies" is because this tradition is dying out amongst the younger generation in newer neighborhoods.

Cities have expanded and completely new neighborhoods have sprung up in the deserts uprooting people from their old familiar neighborhoods and regrouping them into new, unfamiliar, constructed neighborhoods. Houses are bigger and further apart than in the old neighborhoods making it hard to get to know you neighbors. It's also harder to hear the arguments in the houses next door and you can't casually see their comings or goings without staking them out from your window either. All of the sudden, privacy reigns in the newer neighborhoods. Unlike in the older neighborhoods, you now need to announce your visit well in advance if you plan on visiting anyone to avoid majorly inconveniencing them.

Back in the old neighborhood after 'Asr, the old ladies knock on an open front door or clap their hands to announce their entrance to the residents inside. In many older houses, the magellat, or women's parlor, is located off of the family's living room. This means that the guest/intruder gets to see who's kept up house well, who's kids aren't cleaned up, and whether or not your hair was brushed upon stepping in the door. In order to keep up appearances, many women I know who live in these old neighborhoods sleep until noon then, cook lunch, eat, then rush to make fresh tea and coffee and promptly clean up and shower before the 'Asr prayer hits. If she's running a bit behind schedule, she risks un-announced guests arriving to see her and her house looking all torn up…what gossip fodder that is!

Ladies take a seat in the magellat in front of the a/c and are given a cup of water as they cool off a bit. Not having yet caught their breath and still wiping the perspiration from their faces with the inside of their now flipped-open face-veils, the Ayjoozat begin the day's gossip session with an exchange of pre-determined pleasantries to be said AT each other not TO each in a swift, simultaneous, robotic exchange without an obvious ounce of true concern to their demeanor:

"How are you…how's it going…how's your health…how's the family, good?…how's your parent's?...how's your mom's uncle's wife's father's cousin twice-removed's daughter doing?" (Ok, so I embellished a bit… but that's how it feels sometimes!)

Wedding invitations are like gold to these old women, there's really not much else to do around town. Anyone who receives an invitation with a +1 on it is everyones best friend. Many animated conversations revolve around events at these weddings and filling in the blanks for any non-attendees:

"Oh my God, there was this girl in a half-there purple dress! She was shaking her thang like this and her boobs were hoisted up like that (complete with actual booty shaking and boob-hoisting motions)"

"Ya, but the bride's mom, NO shame! Her hair's cut so short and she's wearing a sleeveless dress like this, at her age! And how's her stomach so flat?"

"Gurl, I heard she had a tummy-tuck and lipo just for the wedding"

"I heard they paid XXXX amount of money for the dress and they got it from Jeddah. And the tagagat** cost them XXX per hour and they were brought in from Kuwait.

"I saw so-and-so. I heard she's hired a lawyer to get a divorce from her husband"

And the beat goes on…

In one afternoon, sometimes 3 or 4 women visit my MIL's house. After sitting at her house for a bit and exchanging gossip, the women leave and many times go on to different houses to visit other friends in the neighborhood. Now it's math time:

4 women visit my MIL's house each bringing with them one piece of gossip to add to my MIL's gossip. After the exchange of gossip, each woman who'd originally had one piece of gossip leaves my MIL's house with 4 new pieces of gossip totaling 5 juicy tidbits. Then, each woman goes on her separate way once leaving my MIL's house and goes to another friend's house with her 5 bits of information where she meets 4 more women at the next house. She then spreads her 5 juicy tidbits to the 4 new women at her other friends house while acquiring at least 4 more juicy tidbits, at least one news bite from each woman totaling 9 interesting news bits for the day (I think). But if this is the second or third house the women at the other friend's house had visited that day, each woman may have more than one juicy tidbit to pass on!

Who from my readers is good at logarithms? LOL!

*Ayjooza= old woman

**Tagagat= female drum players/singers at weddings and parties (hired band)

Good Mourning Al-Hassa

Usually during Ramadan, the streets and shops open and are all lit up as life begins after Taraweeh prayers finish around 8:30pm. Since we haven't bought the kids their Eid clothes yet and time's running out, we decided a few days ago that we'd go out after prayers last night. We picked up some of DD's nieces for the trip and set out before 9pm but, something wasn't quite right.

Daisy: Traffic seems unusually light going through the souk.

DD: What time is it? All the shops are still closed.

Daisy: Prayer's done with, is there something special going on for the Shia today?

Ah yes, this must be the reason. I vaguely recall seeing an unusual amount of black clothing on offer at the markets during the past few weeks.

Shia make-up around 1/3 of the population of Al-Hassa as well as there being small groups of Sufis and almost every denomination of Sunni Islam as well. Because the tenuous tranquility of the town exists at the expense of our Shia neighbors freedom to practice religion and express themselves as THEY deem correct, we Sunnis are usually completely unaware of various Shia customs and religious practices.

Although we Sunnis work, study, and many times live next to Shia Hasawis, the topic of religion is verboten due to its volatile nature and the gag-order that's been imposed on the Shia minority . Sunnis and Shia don't pray together and Shia have their own masjids, labeled "Husaynias", which they go to for prayer but are restricted by the government to announce only the Sunni call to prayer at Sunni designated times over the loudspeaker because it differs slightly from that of the Shia. Marriages between the sects are also virtually unheard of in Al-Hassa and if it does occur, it would usually be a Sunni man with a Shia woman. Due to the lack of genetic homogenization, Hasawis can easily distinguish on-sight which camp one belongs to due to the distinct facial features and mannerisms each group exhibits which may not be apparent to a non-Hasawi observor.

With respect to any Hasawi Shia that may be reading this and to the education of all my readers...I know I'm only touching the tip of the iceberg in my description of the rift that exists between the two sects as well as the ensuing discrimination and although I sympathise with their plight. I won't pretend to completely understand its ramifications as a member of the majority.

Measures have been taken(read "smackdowns") by several institutions such as schools and companies to quash the expression of many Shia religious observations; the most obvious to Sunnis are the various days of mourning which Sunnis do not acknowledge. Due to nepotism, tribe pride, and wastafarians running rife and most times, unchecked, Shia have long been kept out of even the most basic employment by the Sunni majority.

Sound familiar?

Like many minority populations, such as Jews in Europe, this has forced them into self-employment and +90% of the women's souk in Al-Hassa as well as most of the gold-merchants are Shia-owned. The majority of times, speaking from my own experience, this isn't a problem as I observe Sunnis buying from our Shia businessmen without reservation.

Now, back to our shopping trip gone bust:

DD quickly called one of his Shia acquaintances to ask him what's happening...no answer. Then he tries calling one of his Shia-knowledgeable cousins while driving through a ghost-town of a souk. He confirmed that Shia were indeed, mourning the assassination of Ali ibn Abi Talib (RAA), the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet (PBUH) who died on the 21st of Ramadan in the city of Kufa in 661 CE. This is one of several days in which Shia observe mourning but Sunni Muslims in Saudia, although we highly revere Ali (RAA), do not. We Sunnis in Saudia only observe the two Eids within the framework of our religious practice. Had so many shops not been closed for mourning, we would have never noticed/remembered the event.

Determined to salvage the evening, we decided to seek out a restaurant. We will try shopping again tonight but not before we consulted our Shia-"expert" again to confirm the mourning would be finished by then to avoid another wasted trip out. Driving through town armed with our renewed inter-cultural understanding of our Shia brethren, we took notice of the vast amount of businesses closed during peak shopping times. Whole swaths of town were as black as the clothing Shia children were wearing while walking to "Husaynias*" in stark contrast to the Ramadan lights on open Sunni businesses.

DD: "I can't believe I've lived here all my life and didn't realize what was going on!"

Hasawis And Their Seeds

When I first took my furnished apartment upon arriving to Saudia from America, I found a stick-on bindi left over from the previous tenants embedded into the seemingly clean short-piled carpet. From this bindi, I had accurately guessed (later to be confirmed by my new neighbors) that the former tenants were Indian as wearing a bindi is an Indian thing to do. I wonder if the people who took the apartment after us guessed accurately that Hasawis had lived in the apartment upon the discovery of discarded seed husks which had remained deeply buried in the carpet fibers, unseen to my eyes as I cleaned, which tend to pop up one at a time during successive cleaning sessions.

From a previous post- tips on spotting a Saudi Hillbilly:

#1 You know you’re a Hasawi if there’s a pile of chewed-up spit-out seeds shells on the ground next to you.
#12 You know you’re a Hasawi if you must have a bag of seeds, della of tea and beyalas to “travel” to Dammam. (Dellas are vacuum thermos flasks and beyalas are little glass tea cups).


My first days with my in-laws, they stayed with us in the temporary furnished apartment that we’d rented for a few days to welcome me to the family. On the first night, they came with vacuum thermoses of tea and Saudi coffee and distributed plates of various toasted and salted seeds such as sunflower and melon seeds. They sat sipping tea, chatting, laughing, and putting handfuls of seeds in their mouths.

I watched in silenced shock as my new family members deftly maneuvered the seeds around their mouths with their tongues to crack open the shells, extract the inside of the seed, and move the empty shell to the outside of their mouths leaving the husk dangling from their bottom lip waiting to be orally projected out onto the floor in front of them- all without the use of their hands. It was reminiscent of watching those large parrots at the pet store eat their seeds, cracking them open with their beaks and extracting the inner part with their tongues.

Within a half hour of the first seeds being consumed, the living room floor was filled with discarded seed shells which then became embedded into the bare feet navigating through the shell piles. This facilitated the migration of seed shells throughout the entire apartment as they resettled on the previously immaculate carpet once shaking free of their podal vectors. There wasn’t a corner left unmolested by a seed’s presence in the entire apartment. Several times during my in-laws stay, the husks were swept up by a hand-broom (as I hadn’t yet been able to buy a vacuum) once seed-appetites had been satiated for the evening only to have a fresh coating redistributed during the course of the next tea/chat session.

This was my introduction to Hasawis and their love of seeds.

Previous to coming to Saudia, most of my Saudi acquaintances had been either Hijazi or Najdi. People from all different parts of Saudia eat seeds, although not necessarily in the manner previously described. What sets Hasawis apart from the average Saudi seed eater is the frequency and amount of seeds that are eaten as well as the manner in which the husks are disposed of. Although I have seen many Hasawis delicately remove the empty seed shells from their mouths with their fingers and neatly dispose of them in a designated receptacle, more prefer the spittoon-style disposal method onto the floor/ground. This irks me to no end- especially if it’s MY carpet!

Keeping in mind that I may be generalizing, I didn’t apply the seed-eating/spitting stereotype to ALL Hasawis. However, year after year of witnessing countless discarded seed husks around town around have confirmed that this is indeed a wide-spread Hasawi convention. Also, I’ve come to learn that some Hasawis use eating seeds as a way to help with appetite control when dieting or to stop smoking. With the exception of peanut shells on the floor of a well-known steakhouse chain, I’d never before come across seed husks when in public. Here are a few locations I’ve seen piles of seed husks:
· friends and family’s cars
· the park
· the desert on the outskirts of town- despite its size there are usually petrified seed husks mixed in the sand.
· in parking lots
· on supermarket floors
· on the ground in the souk
· in the sofa-cushions of just about any Hasawi home.
· at the beach
· outside my children’s schools
· outside the hospital
· in DesertFlowers knickknacks
· inside computer printers
· thobe pockets

There are more, but you get the point.

DD has not only infuriated me with this seed-habit, he refuses to alter it any despite my trying to convince him with logic. Yesterday, while watching the Saudi vs. Indonesia game, he called for the housekeeper to bring him up a plate of seeds. I started telling him he shouldn’t be eating seeds now; Buddy is 8 ½ months, crawling and putting everything he finds in his mouth. I’m worried a broom-evading seed husk could get lodged in his little throat. After he deflected my objections with a look that says he doesn’t give a damn and I’m just nagging, my housekeeper arrived with the plate of seeds. Unaware of my having already reprimanded him, she started chastising him too. Apparently, the middle-ground was reached because by the end of the game there wasn’t a seed husk left on the floor because they’d been respectfully discarded in the trash bin. Thanks DD…and it only took 10 years folks!

So…if when in Saudia you see a pile of seed husks on the ground- chances are, a Hasawis been there.

Hangin at the farm

Eat your hearts out Najdis and Hijazis. Y'all have your fancy shmancy buildings and your glittery cities. You got your shopping malls and your restaurants. But how often do you get to see mother nature at her finest? We may be in Podunk, but we have miles and miles of green stuff. Here's how Hassawis spend there time:

We hung out the whole night and left at dawn. There was dancing, singing, laughing, swimming, and eating greasy lamb on top of rice. We aren't lucky enough to own a farm, this one was a rental, but we're gonna buy one Inshallah. These farms are what holds me back from running like a bat out of hell to a "big city". This is quality of life.

Support Sisters, Saudi Heritage, and the Envirionment With One Transaction

I’m being teased mercilessly and getting called “Nakhlawiyya” (farm-girl) by my in-laws because of my choice in laundry baskets. Instead of buying one of gazillions of plastic laundry baskets, I went and ordered a traditional, woven basket to be made for me by one of the dying breed of basket weavers here in the city. It’s actually used for hauling dates around but I saw its value for hauling clothes around. Nowadays most of these baskets are woven from plastic so I had to order one made for me of old-fashioned, undyed palm leaves.

Um Ahmed is the lady who managed to solicit our patronage…and these are some aggressive saleswomen! They’re located at the Thursday Market in back of the Central fruit market every Thursday morning till noon prayer. Yes, I mean the now notorious fruit market which is in back of the Flirty-Go-Round (the Baladiyya-City Hall). Since this area is away from the main body of the Thursday Market I could get down out of the car and browse through some of the ladies’ goods on sale and have a chat with them without shaming my family for several generations to come.

Um Ahmed allowed us to take a few pictures of her wares, all stuff she’s woven herself, as long as she was out of the picture. A tiny man, whom I can only assume is Abu Ahmed, was happy to pose holding up some of the items on display in a bid for free advertising. All the while he was telling me about the value of these baskets and how strong they are…that’s OK, we’re buying them already.

Um Ahmed saw my dork husband coming from a mile away and talked him into buying some traditional fans, pictured perched on top of the basket in the handles along with the mat she convinced him we need.

These poor women could use an A/C. The temp was rising fast and it wasn’t even noon yet!
The only things they have to protect them are these little shelters.

If I’d chosen a plastic laundry basket, it would be around for hundreds of years after its job of carrying laundry was done. It would have probably broken and cracked, forcing me to buy another one after only a few short years. This adds another plastic laundry basket behind as my ecological legacy for future archeologists to find and speculate as to their uses along with millions of pampers, plastic shopping bags, Pepsi cans and legless Fulla ‘idols’ in a Saudi landfill.

You can find 'Um Ahmed's' in any country on this planet, struggling to preserve traditional crafts and bring them to market. By buying from Um Ahmed I’m helping to preserve a piece of heritage and history, I’m putting food on her table and clothing her children and I’m not polluting the earth. Also, I get to listen to my in-laws reminisce about their sweet memories growing up ‘before oil’, a history lesson triggered by the sight of my new laundry basket.

The Flirty-Go-Round

A strange phenomenon occurs when you combine a city full of big butts, guts, and only one nice sidewalk: The Flirty-Go-Round.

Many people here would like to walk for exercise but, the lack of sidewalks can make this unpleasant. Some neighborhoods also lack sewers and there is sewage leaking from overflowing septic tanks into the sidewalk-less streets. Also, walking on the road can turn you into a moving target for this country’s unskilled drivers. Only recently has the city begun to create actual sidewalks on some main drags.

The first place to get a nice new brick sidewalk was the city hall building (Al-Baladiyya). It is very wide and completely encircles city hall and its surrounding greenery. There isn’t any houses close by, only the maternity hospital and a big post office building. People began to flock to the new sidewalk, which resembles a track, to get their daily exercise. It’s popular because of its nice wide circular shape, nice green scenery, its central location, it provides a measurable distance for the walkers, and it’s just become a “thing” to do.

Pregnant women, fresh from seeing a doctor at the maternity hospital, would go walking/waddling there to bring on or progress labor. Other women, who work at some of the neighboring hospitals, also started going there and would walk while chatting with their friends after their shifts. Some men, in full jogging gear, also began going there, weaving around the slowly walking abaya-clad women. More and more people came to walk and it wasn’t long before the young men of the town caught wind of this new place to go and potentially meet women on the move.

Recognizing the “danger” posed by all this gender mixing, the people inside city hall came up with a rule to help curb potential flirting. The rule was; anyone walking around city hall has to walk in a clockwise direction. This would help to keep men from “bumping” into oncoming women or vice versa. It would also curb any flirty looks at oncoming walkers. So, the walking continued, in a more orderly fashion.

One can come any day after ‘Asr prayer and see the clockwise walking continue right into the night. There’s usually a girl/boy order to the walking: a gaggle of girls immediately preceeding a flock of flirters in freshly ironed thobes and starched ghutras…yeah, they’re there to exercise...sure.


One determined young man decided to use his education to convince the government officials of their folly in deciding to keep everyone moving in a clockwise direction. He took an appointment with the highest minister in city hall and proceeded to argue logic.
He quoted from his science books:

“Sir, it’s scientifically proven that if a human being continues to move in a clockwise direction, his heart will explode! The rule that everyone has to walk in a clockwise direction will harm our health and should be revoked immediately.”

The minister sat, and let the earnest young man complete his spiel without objecting or saying a word. Little did the young man know but this particular minister was a science major himself. After he was done the minister showed the young man out. He informed him it was doubtful any of the walkers could attain such a speed, only attainable in a centrifuge-like device, so as to cause their heart to explode and thanked him for his concern.

I guess he’ll have to find another way to meet women.

Al-Hassa's screwy weather

For those of you living in tornado ally or in the path of future hurricanes, you won't blink an eye at the following picture. We live with the hottest weather on planet earth, that's our lot in life. It's miserably hot but, predictable down to the week every year, the same thing. This year has been a bit different. There's been more rain at times there's usually not rain and the other night, a wind storm that tore pieces of the city and threw them.

This is in one of the poorer neighborhood's, Salhiyah

You would think that this fell from the house that it's leaning against but your wrong...It came from 3 houses over to the left of the picture! We'll see how long it takes to get cleared and by whom.

Forbidden Fruit

There are some places here where it’s just not OK for a woman to go. But the fruit market, come on!

What are they worried about, someone man-handling my melons or pinching my peaches?

My husband, the Dork of the Desert (DD), hasn’t a clue how to pick out what I need. The result- him walking back and forth a couple of times to and from the car when I don’t approve of his choices or need to remind him of items he’s forgotten. There are some old women there, some foreigners, but even my husband is a bit uneasy with me being there in the car.

I know a household of women, real do-it-yourselfers, who go fruit shopping anyway. The father died not long before I met them and their only brother was living overseas. Their solution: the oldest daughter (in her ‘30’s) put on her old lady abaya (styles differ between the generations) and went and did whatever she needed to, including the fruit market.

The Thursday market is another no-go zone for the estrogen-endowed. One man told me he wouldn’t even take his infant daughter to the bird market there, it’s such a shame. Once again, the few women there are Bedouin or Shia, and only some of the oldest Sunni women. My mothers in law’s requests for transport to the Thursday market are met with all her 5 sons refusing to take her. I’ve convinced my husband to take me on a few occasions but only descended from the car once, after he took a good look around to see who’s watching.

Another strange place that I can’t go is the Islamic shop where there are various books, cassettes, and religious paraphernalia for sale. This one I couldn’t fathom why. I wanted to buy some Islamic nasheed (a cappella songs without musical instruments) tapes for myself and my children. Once again, I can’t go in because “it’s just not done”. DD has to go in and communicate with me walkie- talkie style on our mobiles for my approval as I sat in the car outside.

There isn’t a law forbidding us to go any of these places, as I’ve mentioned there are some women there. Unfortunately, our men don’t want other men seeing them take their women to these places. I have a feeling that with the influx of Qataris this will soon change, if it hasn’t started already- I haven’t gone for quite awhile. Unaware that fruit shopping is a shame, Qatari women, who are similar to us in appearance, will freely peruse the markets. I hope the Saudi fruit sellers can endure the sight of these women all fondling their fruits and caressing their cucumbers.

Booty Food

Booty Food, noun, [boo-tee food]
1. Any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, and promote prolific booty expansion in the members of the Sunday Bitching Brigade (SBB).
2. Food items, high in fat and calories that have been horded and valued beyond societal norms for their American-ness, limited availability, and due to their difficult and sporadic acquisitions.
3. Examples of booty food are (but not limited to): Log Cabin pancake syrup, A&W Rootbeer, Pumpkin pie, Butterball Turkeys, any food of Mexican origin, most food of Italian origin, French bread, cheddar cheese (real stuff, not Velveeta), Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Pillsbury Toaster Strudels, deli meats, Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, tins of biscuits, Steak, Doritos, Chocolate chip cookie dough, Dunkin Donuts, and Eggo Waffles.
—Related forms
boo·ty·less, boo-ty-full , boo-ty-li-cious adjectives

Every Sunday, I look forward to consuming Booty Food with my friends. Readers of this blog who live in the Greater Dammam Area (ARAMCO central), Riyadh, and Jeddah are probably perplexed at the great value the SBB (Sunday Bitching Brigade) places on many of the food items listed. For you, it’s just a normal trip to the supermarket to get any one of these things and more. Either that or you can just go to one of many American chain restaurants and order some of these things. For the SBB, these things are luxuries and we’ve gone to great lengths to acquire them. Although better than in years past, Al-Hassa still lacks the variey of....well...just about everything except date palms.

Seeing as how my husband is Hasawi, it takes months of nagging and planning for him to take me to Dammam (this includes Khobar and Dharan too) as this is considered major traveling to him (1 ½ hr car trip). When there, I execute a carefully planned order of stops with military precision to provide the least amount of irritation to my travel-sensitive spouse, and yet accomplish all my goals. This plan includes a mix of supermarkets, clothing stores, Starbucks, the gorgeous Corniche, friends’ houses, and restaurants, all designed to maximize my Dammam time. All the while I have my husband, trudging behind me holding packages or a child and asking, “ma baad khalaasti (haven’t you finished yet)?”

During my supermarket trips, I refer to two lists I’ve compiled over a period of months. One is a list of foods and other items to keep my eye out for myself, and the other list is my friends’ requests. Sometimes, I will find one item in one supermarket, and a related item in another. For example, I’ll find turkey in one supermarket, and a can of cranberry sauce in another. The supermarkets don’t always stock exactly the same items all the time so if I find pumpkin pie filling for example, I’d better buy it then and there as it may not be there on my next visit. My daughters are incensed if I return from a trip to Dammam without the obligatory string cheese and Eggo’s.


Later on, back in Al-Hassa, my kitchen cabinet’s stock takes on an eclectic theme. There sits a lonely jar of salsa, waiting for its chance to be united with refried beans and tortillas upon their long-awaited discovery in a Dammam supermarket. Or, there’s the stuffing mix and cranberry sauce that have been yearning for months for my husband to agree to the purchase of a 100 riyal turkey (+$20). It took two months of shopping trips in Al-Hassa and Dammam to gather all the ingredients necessary for a proper pot of chili! We’ve even gone so far as to collect food items on our trips to the States or to request them from people sending care-packages to us. I bought up kosher onion soup mix, cream of tartar, and baby cereal on my last trip and my friend regularly has her mom send her white gravy mix. Another friend in Jubail told me of when her mom had sent her a care package containing various items and Reese’s Cup’s. The package arrived with all the items intact but alas! Only the distinct aroma of the Reese’s Cup’s remained. Apparently, they’d been "confiscated" by Saudi customs agents in a bid to keep this nation’s booty sizes in check. The valiant lads!


Every few weeks, the SSB creates a themed meeting. For example, after sporadically gathering items over the course of several months, we had Mexican day. We wantonly applied great gobs of sour cream to tacos and salaciously dipped our tortilla chips in salsa with a sense of enormous fulfillment. It was almost an X-rated scene. Only people rescued from a long stint on a desert island relish their food more than we do on these days. When November rolls around, we all have strange hankerings for turkey. Since we’re all Muslims, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas. That fact doesn’t detract from the fondness we hold for the memories surrounding those holidays in the States, including the tastes and smells of that season’s food.

Possibly, it’s for the best that we don’t have regular access to some of our favorite foods. Given the freedom to regularly indulge in booty food, even our big roomy abayas couldn’t contain our huge booties, a bit too much ‘junk in the trunk’.

(No, that's not my butt in the picture above, in case any smart a**es were gonna ask. Google Image, search- "big butt")

Evil Eyes in Al-Hassa

Let’s play a guessing game. Imagine you’re a Hasawi and try to guess what may be the single underlying cause of the following events.
1. Due to mystically sinister reasons, a large zit came into existence between my eyes which is neither coverable by make-up, nor my burga.
2. A predisposition to rashes was not the principal cause of a rash.
3. A car accident is not purely a car accident caused by the insanity and ineptitude of the majority of this country’s male drivers.
What is the causal theme between all of these distressing events? They could have all been caused by (imagine ominous and sinister sounding music here)…


THE EYE! (Dum Dum Duhhhhhhhhhhhhm sounding music here).



On Friday, we went for our usual visit to the Family’s (in-laws) house to eat lunch after Jumaat prayer. One of my daughters has several mosquito bites from leaving her window open in her room. What did my mother-in-law tell me to do for those bites? “Put Vicks”, she said assertively. My husband and I snickered silently behind her back remembering my last blog post. Then, she noticed the ghastly rash that my oldest daughter has creeping up her face. It just started up a few days ago, seemingly out of the blue. Two out of my three children have inherited my ultra-sensitive skin. I have to be so careful whenever using new skin products or perfumes to patch-test them first. Failure to do so has landed me with a face full of hives several times during my life. Upon expertly examining the offending eruptions on her grandchild’s face from several angles my mother-in-law concluded , “someone gave her an eye.” She then proceeded to treat my daughter with some special incense, holding it under her chin and reciting the name of God several times among other incantations and advised her to come over the next day to have the procedure repeated again. In addition, she sagely advised my daughter to always braid her long straight silky hair, as opposed to leaving it open and flowing at school, to avoid someone giving her hair an Eye. If that should happen, she may fall victim to spontaneous hair kinking or something dire of that nature. After all, her cousin H had a flawless complexion all her life up until someone gave her (gasp in terror-filled anticipation here for effect) THE EYE. Someone had the audacity to complement her on her skin and shortly thereafter, she fell victim to the dreaded blight of teens everywhere-the “pizza-face syndrome”. Coincidence? Hasawis think not.

During my tenure in this town, I’ve heard Eyes to be the cause of insanity, divorce, obesity, marrying a second wife, constipation, breast cancer, and car accidents among an infinite number of other things. There is not a single misfortunate event that happens in this city without someone attributing it to an EYE. Not only is this a ubiquitous mindset within the city but apparently, among Saudis we have a reputation for giving Eyes too. Before traveling with my new husband to Al-Hassa, I was advised by other Saudis that Hasawis have “strong Eyes” meaning, they have a proclivity for afflicting people Evil-Eyes. Because of this mindset, I’ve been discouraged from taking my babies with me to visit people, attend functions, or go shopping. Instead, I’ve been offered a chance to go footloose and baby-free by the In-Law Babysitting Service. Although my in-laws are lovely people and genuinely want to help me out, it’s always with the implied understanding that they’re worried someone will think my baby is cute and give their grandchild an Eye. Sometimes I give in because it’s really cool not to haul baby+accoutrements all over the place. Sometimes I insist on taking them with only to pray that the baby doesn’t come down with even a sniffle upon which to blame the Eye and my lack of parental protectiveness.
As Muslims, we believe in an “evil-eye”. It may not be exactly the same as in other cultures but the basic principle is similar: someone wishes ill-will on you while coveting something you have. It is not a hex, nor is it a curse placed upon a person, although that exists too. A person may not even be consciously aware of having afflicted someone with an Eye. However, there appears to be a gap between the Islamic understanding of an “evil-eye”, and the traditional cultural understanding. In different parts of the Muslim world, different groups attempt to ward off Eyes/curses with different methods. Thanks to widely available religious training, much of the shirk and pseudo-Islamic voodoo that occurs in other countries is slowly becoming extinct amongst Saudis with every generation of educated individuals that is produced. Saudis tend to use avoidance as a means to ward off an eye. The idea is: what’s not seen or talked about, can’t be coveted. This has lead to some unnecessary extremes. For example, upon her family’s urging, one girl at my daughter’s primary school covers her hair with a scarf to protect her from an eye while everyone else is uncovered.
I’m sure every group within this country has its own vanishing variety of hocus pocus intended to ward off or rid oneself of the Eye. Some people hang a passage from the Quran from the review mirror of their car or around their neck as an engraved necklace. I’ve seen little blue eyes inlayed in jewelry. A sister residing in Canada wrote me of her native Tunisia and described the wide assortment of amulets, magicians, and soothsayers. There’s one problem with this…they’re ALL wrong. All though the Quran can ward off an Eye, it has to be in your heart, not around your neck.
Now, it had been my intention to provide some pearls of Islamic wisdom but there’s a big problem with this, I’m ignorant. At least as an Islamic scholar I’m ignorant. I know what I’m not supposed to do but I don’t have exact info on what I AM supposed to do to ward off an Eye, just a general idea or two. I know to recite ayat Al-Kursi to protect myself from an Eye and to wash or drink from the water that an Eye-giver has washed in to remove a legitimate Eye. I’m waiting for my friend to get back to me with actual Ahadith from her Imam husband. I’ll update my post after she does. (updated info in comments section)


Meanwhile, don’t be so paranoid my fellow Hassawis. I shalt not covet my neighbor’s Caprice. So don’t blame my Eye when you get in that fender-bender with a Qatari’s Land Cruiser because your view was obstructed by a windshield covered in the chewed-up/spit-out sunflower seed shells you tried to orally project out the window whilst speeding and simultaneously picking your nose. Not everything bad happens because someone has it out for you. Sometimes it’s just the will of God or your own stupidity and one must acknowledge that Sh** happens.
By the way, my husband- a Hasawi to the core- got a kick out of my last post. After reading it he first gave me a playful smack to the back of my head before asking me to send him the link so he could send it to his friends. Truth hurts. And yes, he owned a white Caprice. That should say everything.

You Know You're a Hasawi When...Tips on Spotting a Saudi Hillbilly

People from Al-Hassa (aka Hofuf, Al-Ahsa) are some of the loveliest people you’d ever want to meet. They’re more rural (this is an oasis town with a lot of agriculture), less jaded, and are pleased with some of the simpler things in life. Having said this, there are certain characteristics that make Hasawis distinctive from anyone else in the kingdom and have long made them the butt of jokes. I had originally planned on posting this after my blog got more of a Saudi fan base (because only Saudis could appreciate most of this post) however, I decided this would be a way to give outsiders a glimpse of Hasawi life.
So, in the tradition of the comedian Jeff Foxworthy (you know you’re a redneck when…) here’s how to identify a Saudi hillbilly…

You know you’re a Hasawi when…

• There’s a pile of chewed-up/spit-out seeds next to you on the ground.
• you picnic on the side of busy roads
• you and/or most of your family have takeser (sickle-cell anemia- we have more cases in Al-Hassa then than in the entire rest of the kingdom combined)
• you go to your uncle’s house to find a bride
• You drive either a white Chevy Caprice or GMC Suburban (I have a max count of 12 Caprices on one block of road!)
• You use one hand to steer your Caprice while using the other hand to pick your nose.
• you’re at the farm a couple days a week hanging out
• you consider going to Dammam traveling (it’s barely over an hours drive)
• Your Suburban or white Caprice gets into a fender-bender with a Qatari driving a white Toyota Land Cruiser. (You’d think there’s nothing in Qatar, lately Al-Hassa is full of Qataris. Good for the local economy though.)
• you can tell the difference between a Mubaraz accent and a Hofuf accent (two main urban parts of Al-Hassa not including the villages)
• You change your accent to a Najdi accent when dealing with people other than Hasawis in an effort to sound more professional.
• you must have a bag of seeds, della of tea and beyalas to “travel” to Dammam. (Dellas are vacuum thermos flasks and beyalas are little glass tea cups).
• You visit the camel/sheep market with your kids in the car for a family activity.
• If you can fit 17 people into a Caprice.
• Like a fish, you can only live outside of the Al-Hassa fishbowl for short periods of time and have to return often to survive. (Many Hasawis who live/work in other towns like Jubail and Dammam, sometimes come home to Al-Hassa every weekend.)

You know you’re a Hasawia (female Hasawi) when…

• a wedding invitation is the hottest ticket in town
• Your hands are 5 shades darker than your face (due to generous applications of powder in an attempt to look “white/beautiful”).
• You take off your burqa and on the inside is an exact print of your face made of powder and eye shadow.
• an abaya from the shoulders is for “bad girls”
• You think Vicks can cure everything from baldness to rheumatism, oh yes- it can help a cough too.
• You think an a/c causes most illnesses
• You think drinking cold water or eating ice cream causes most other illnesses.
• There are at least 2 boxes of Kleenex in every room of your house.
• your relatives in the village have a worse accent than you
• If your fart smells different than usual you run to the hospital.
• Your kids are awake all night jumping around like monkeys and go to sleep immediately after getting home from school at noon.
• You know who your new neighbor is, what their dirty laundry is, and any and all gossip associated with them before they’ve even moved in.
• You measure your cloth for the tailor in finger-lengths, hand-lengths, or arm lengths.
• You expect 5 lanes of traffic to stop dead for you as you casually meander across the middle of the street in the souq, or any other street for that matter.
  
  
  And finally, you know you’re a Hasawi if this post pissed you off.