consumption of white cloth

Arab News recently carried an essay translated from the local press. The writer, Ali Al-Mosa reports, "Saudis top the entire world in the consumtion of tea and coffee. They also top the world in the consumption of Viagra, spending about SR 150 million on it annually."

It appears, though it is not clearly stated, that the top rank secured by the Saudis is in terms of total, not per capita, consumption. That is really hard to believe. With only some 25 million people, including expatriates, try to imagine how much tea or coffee each Saudi would have to consume to beat, say, the 1.3 billion Chinese. With a large majority of the population under the age of 30 and with so little opportunities/inclination to be promiscuous, it is hard to understand why Saudi men would have such a need for Viagra pills.

But then the title of the story was 'Unreliable consumer statistics', and the 'facts' were cited to drive home the point that consumer statistics published in the local press need to be taken with a grain of salt.

However, if the press reports that the Saudis top the world in consumption of white cloth, I, for one, would be inclined to believe it. Except for the very brief period of the year that can be termed winter, Saudi men are always clad in ankle-length white robes, with white undergarments underneath, and around may be half of them sport a headgear made of a large white scarf-life piece of cloth (the rest wear a red-and-white pattern).

Photo credit: Hassan Ammar/AP

visit visa for family

I wanted to issue a visit visa to bring in my mother-in-law for a short trip. The process to do so, like so many other things here, is shrouded in mystery, at least for an expatriate like me with no connections and no knowledge of Arabic. I tried to learn about it from other people's blogs and experiences. Each had his own version of the process, in particular in relation to the documents that I would need to submit. I decided to believe all of them in order to minimise the risk of my application being turned down, so I went to the relevant government office carrying a big stack of papers including copies of my residence permit, my passport, my wife's passport, my mother-in-law's passport, my educational certificates, my marriage certificate, a letter from my employer etc. I had filled a form on the Internet and was given a number for future reference. When I handed my papers at the designated window, they gave me back everything except for the letter from my employer and the copies of my passport and residence permit.

I was advised to check their Website after 10 days to see if the visa advice is issued. Others waiting in the lounge told me that the process actually takes much less time, typically not more than 3 days. In my case, however, it took almost a month. But better late than never.

back to the kingdom

I returned to the Kingdom yesterday after a two-month long vacation. The flight from home, which was delayed by four hours, took around six hours. The wait at the passport control took about two hours. Some families spent more than four hours there. There were only 2-3 officers working at a time for hundreds of arriving passengers waiting in horrendously long queues. I am tired, but I'll have to spend a good part of the next few days cleaning up our flat. Belated Eid greetings to all!

more thoughts on traffic

I'd been away from blogging for sometime mainly because I was away from the Kingdom. For some time, I was in Thailand. I'd been there on many occasions in the past, but this was my first time since arriving in Saudi Arabia. This made me appreciate the driving habits of Thais more deeply. They are courteous to each other, and to pedestrians. They stop at zebra-crossings to let pedestrians pass. Honking of horns is a rarity.

The public transport system is also very good in Bangkok. There is an extensive network of bus routes. You can find taxis anywhere, and in the central part of the city you can use BTS (SkyTrain) or MRT. There are also boats carrying passengers along the canals, and limited train services. They are testing a newly installed train line from the city centre to the new airport.

In spite of this, there are lots of cars on the roads and traffic jams are increasing, though they are nowhere near the levels seen here decades ago. The infrastructure for surface transport--the multiple levels of elevated roadways, the overpasses, multi-storied car parks, etc.--have created a very unpleasant (visually) urban landscape. It shows that cars should ideally have a very minor role in plans for urban transportation, particularly in big cities.

thoughts on traffic

Expatriates always complain about the traffic in Saudi Arabia. It's not the congestion that irks people, although that can be a pain in the neck on certain streets at certain times. There are no dearth of cars on the street. You can buy cars on installment and petrol is dirt-cheap. But what irritates most people is rash driving. Many drivers leave their common sense when they enter their cars and flout traffic rules with impunity. It may be a bit scary driving in such a milieu. Especially when you see mangled wreckage of cars surrounded by police vehicles and ambulances every now and then.

Apart from that, however, driving is a pleasant experience when seen from a South Asian perspective. Here you have to mind other cars only. Back home you would be required to watch out for pedestrians, especially those who suddenly decide to cross the street in a great hurry. Some of the pedestrians would be four-footed. Some of the vehicles are slow human-powered ones. All of them would be competing for space on the narrow roads bursting with traffic. In this chaotic mess, drivers would be honking their horns constantly. It's enough to drive you crazy.

Coming back to the scene here, I think the congestion would worsen considerably when women are evetually allowed to drive (I believe the ban would be lifted sooner or later). The number of vehicles would double almost immediately. Parking cars would become impossible in the core areas of cities.

Public transport and a network of pedestrian paths with a high sensuous quality must be given serious consideration.

Photo credit: mliss

how many days do you need to open a bank account?

It varies from bank to bank or from case to case depending on I don't know what.

When I arrived here and received my residence permit, one of the first things I had to do was open a salary bank account. There is small branch of a bank near our administrative building. I went there and met the manager. He was very courteous and helpful. He gave me a list of the documents I needed to bring (letter from my employer, copies of my passport and residence permit and original residence permit). The next day when I brought the required documents, he filled out my application form and the account was created within minutes. He said my ATM card would reach my mailbox in a week. Two weeks later I still hadn't received my card. I was planning to see the manager when I received a call from the bank with a request to see them. At the bank I met the manager (a new one, the earlier one was apparently transferred). He handed me the ATM card saying that no one recognized me at the address where the card was mailed to. The helpful manager had given the wrong address in my application form (and I heard from colleagues that it was not the first such case), so I gave them the appropriate address to rectify my records.

Unfortunately, an account in this bank is useless when it comes to paying sundry government fees (eg., visa fees, driving license fee etc.). Every time I need to pay a fee to the government , I have to request a friend holding an account in either of the two banks from which such payments can be made. So I thought it would be convenient to have an account in one of the two banks.

First, I tried to do so at the bank that I heard is government owned. The guy who received my papers took a long look at my residence permit and asked me who had written my name on it. It was a strange question and I replied that there was no way I could know who at the government immigration office was responsible for writing my name in the permit. He left his desk and talked to a senior colleague. He came back to inform me that I needed to get a seal from the immigration office next to my name. I was not amused. I had used the same document to open my first bank account and couldn't understand why I couldn't do so again. I said goodbye and decided to go to the other bank.

The first day there I was told that their system was down, so I had to come back later. I went there again the next day. The person responsible for opening new accounts asked me whether I had opened an account on the Internet. I said I didn't know something like that was required. So I came back and opened an account through the Internet, and took the number generated to the bank on the following day (day 3). This time the guy told me that they had a new system installed and he was still not familiar with it enough to process my application. He advised me to come back after one day. So I went back two days later. This time he opened my account without any further ado. When I asked about my ATM card, he said it was already prayer time so I had to come back half an hour later. I left the place and came back the following day, which was a Thursday, to find that only limited services were available and obtaining an ATM card was not one of them. I needed the card, without which I cannot transfer money to government accounts. So I visited the bank again on Saturday. I was informed that that particular branch had run out of ATM cards but I could get a card from any other branch of the bank. The next day (day 7) I located a different branch of the bank and finally succeeded in getting the coveted card after nearly two hours (including the noon prayer time). Whew!!

Photo credit:Bongani/stock.xchng

cold is hot, hot is cold

When I arrived in the Kingdom, it was winter and the weather was pleasant. It wasn't too cold, a light jacket was enough to keep you comfortable outside in the evenings. But the water in the bathroom or kitchen was a different matter. Fortunately, there are 'geysers' installed in those places, so I can get running hot water.

Now it is summer, and the sun outside is scorching. The wind blowing in your face seems like a blast from the furnace. And the water from the fawcett is scalding. We can't take a shower during the day, even washing hands requires a get deal of mental strength.

The other day I was relating this problem to some friends, and one of them, an old Saudi hand, gave a simple tip that solved the problem without the need to spend a single halala. This is what he had suggested: turn off the geysers; since the geysers are inside the building, the water in the storage tanks will become cool if the power line is disconnected. Now if you use the cold water tap, you will get hot water from the overhead tank, but use the hot water tap, and you will get colder water from the geyser tank.

That was a nifty solution to what seemed to be an intractable or expensive-to-solve problem. I wish all problems here had such easy solutions.

Photo credit: stock.xchng

party saudi style (almost)

Last night I attended a party hosted by a young Saudi colleague to celebrate his engagement. There were about five dozen guests, mostly colleagues and friends of our host. There was no seggregated space for women because there were no women; it was an all male affair.

The event took place in a rented hall that was designed to resemble a castle, with high boundary walls complete with battlements. There was no moat, but a footpath along the frontage, and a moderate ramp from the gate to the road vaguely resembled a drawbridge.

Inside the gate was a nice green lawn. Our host and his family (well, half his family) were waiting there to greet guests. The intricate rules of Saudi style greetings are still a mystery to me. You just shake hands and say 'Assalamu alaikum' (peace be upon you) or 'Keifa Halak' (how do you do?) if you meet somebody you are not very familiar or intimate with. But in other cases you either kiss each others cheeks with loud smacking noises, or bump each other's cheeks several times in quick succession. What I still don't understand is how they decide whether to kiss or bump cheeks. And how many times.

My host kissed me several times, but I remained silent. When they kiss, they don't really seem to place the lips on your cheek, but make the noise of kissing from a slight distance.

Another very tall colleague stooped low to bring his cheek next to mine on my 5'-5" frame. After three bumps I thought that was enough and was moving apart, but he firmly drew me closer for a fourth and final bump.

I noticed that some students kissed their teachers on the forhead or on the top of their heads.

We (I went there with two other expatriate colleagues) were led into a long, rectangular hall room with sofas arranged along the walls. Guests who had arrived before us were sitting there and we went around shaking hands with each of them. After we took our seats, we were served with endless rounds of sweets and gawa, a very refreshing type of Arab coffee served in tiny little cups.

More guests continued to pour in and every few minutes we had to rise and shake hands with the new guests. Good exercise to whip up the appetite before dinner. About an hour and a half later we were herded to the lawn where dinner was served. I was expecting, rather hoping, a Saudi style dinner, where we would sit on the floor aound large platters of food, from which all of us would be eating with our hands.

Instead, the arrangemetn was for a western style buffet dinner. The food was eclectic, with Lebanese bread, Chinese spring rolls, Indian samosas, italilan style lasagna, several types of salads, hamur, chicken, vegetables and a platter of rice topped with a cooked lamb.

Our host and his father came to see how we were doing during our meal, just as we would do in our country. They thanked us for attending the party, which was of course our pleasure.

After the hearty meal, including desserts and a cup of tea, we took leave from the hosts and headed back home.

you have mail, at last

Yesterday I received a letter from my wife. My wife joined me here in March, and we are on speaking terms, so there is no need for her to send me missives. The letter actually accompanied some documents that she had sent before coming over here. It was mailed on 28 December, 2008, two-and-a-half months before her departure. The envelope has a Jeddah postmark dated 4 Muharram, which is 1 January 2009 according to the Gregorian calendar. So it travelled some 5,240 kilometres in about four days. That amounts to around 55 km/hr. However, the 1,200 kilometre journey from Jeddah to my mailbox in Dammam took around 130 days. That's around 0.4 km/hr. I had heard about the inefficiency of the snail mail service here, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. I am not sure though if I can blame the postal service for the delay, or if the internal mail distribution system in our organization was responsible. It reminds me what people told me about living in Saudi Arabia. You need patience. A lot of it.

meet the muttawa

Last Wednesday we had our first brush with the Muttawa, the dreaded religious police of Saudi Arabia. My wife and I were walking down the street in a shopping district looking for a shop to buy school uniform for our kids. At one road intersection, we were waiting with a crowd of pedestrians for the traffic to stop so we could cross the narrow, one-way street. A four-wheel drive vehicle pulled up and allowed us to pass. I was surprised and pleased because I don't see such gestures here often. I raised my hand in appreciation without noticing who was at the steering wheel. Once we were across the street, I heard someone yelling from behind. I turned around and saw it was the driver of the four wheel vehicle. The only word I understood from what he was saying was 'madam'. I had never seen a Muttawa before, but I had no problem recognising that this was one, and I knew he was exhorting my wife to cover her head. I waved at him and told my wife what it was about. She promptly covered her head with her scarf. That satisfied him and he drove off to find other deviant souls to save.

15 minutes later we had finished our shopping and were returning to our car when the loudspeakers of the local mosque blared out the call for prayer. We saw the same Muttawa drive down the street exhorting the people on the streets to go to the mosque (I guess).

I have read so many horror stories involving the Muttawa in the newspapers here, I was hoping I would never come accross one of them. I am sure, though, that the bad publicity they received is only due to a few bad apples. Newspaper reports also suggest that the government has taken measures to curb the excesses committed by the Muttawa. Friends who have been living here for some time say that the Muttawa have assumed a more low key profile in recent times. I hope it remains like that.