Wednesday, April 16, 2014

#10 The Souq

Another week has come and gone in this, my three-month professional assignment. Funny how you just acclimatize to your situation where ever you find yourself. As I noted in my Timor Blog in the past, I was always apprehensive, and fearful of moving, and respected anyone that could just pick up and move to a different city/country for whatever reason. However as I learnt from my time in Timor, and now my time here, you realize that people (I include myself now) just adapt. Whether by choice or other reasons you accept your decision or fate and learn to accept your situation as best you can. I am in no way comparing my situation to this, but you need only to look back through the history of man and see countless examples of people adapting, usually though as a result of of mans injustice to each other: slavery, that unfortunately still exist, the migration of Christians from Egypt 3,000 years ago, the serfs of medieval Europe, or soldiers far away from home living for long periods in terrible conditions and in a constant state of fear or terror.

I think back to when I arrived, and where I am now and it seems like so long ago. Initially timid to go into the unknown, not knowing or fearing what might happen, and being disoriented every time I get in the car despite the GPS. Now, after only a couple of months, there is no-where I will not venture in this huge city of some five or six million people. While it is still easy to be turned around driving with U-turns as part of the traffic landscape and the continuous construction everywhere, I now have a sense of where I am, and which way I need to go to get home. I play a game: I start going home on my own and if I cannot seem to get it right, bail out to the lazy man's map, the GPS, and hit the “go home” button. One thing that is disorienting about this city unlike most I have been to; that there is no obvious 'downtown' in which to orient you. Even in the vast urban sprawl of Los Angeles, there is a downtown which you can orient yourself with. In Riyahd, there is no downtown per se. I have mentioned the financial center before, which is half built, that we pass every day to work (some 34 buildings of various heights in this grand Utopian ideal of what a large commercial development should look like). If you’re interested google KAFD for King Abdulla Financial District). Everything is being built at the same time with hundreds of construction derricks crowning the top of each building. A few kilometers away you find the Riyahd Center (aka the can opener some 70 stories tall). There are tall buildings dotting the landscape of this city with no particular area of congregation.

Forging out on my own last Saturday was a case in point. I set out to find this souq I stumbled upon about 25 or so kilometers from where we live. I had found this place by accident a few weeks previously, on one of my aimless drives. Speaking of aimless drives, not only do people travel at rapid velocities, park anywhere with the vehicle running to keep the AC going, driving around isn’t given much thought when petrol is less than 20 cents/litre. People routinely drive to other destinations in the Kingdom without thought to fuel burn. Who cares about public transport when it is so cheap to drive?

I didn’t lose my Friday; on the contrary, Friday was my second Visa reset. If you remember from last time, one of the requirements of my 180-day Visa is that I leave the country every 30 days, I guess to verify that I didn’t get lost in the desert somewhere? Last time I took the opportunity to stay in Dubai for two nights and see a bit of the city. However, that one experience made me realize what a lot of the other guys do: make it a day trip to preserve some of our precious weekend. Despite the short flight to DXB (about an hour and a half), with immigration on either side and being international the requirement to be early to the airport, I spent more time in airports or on a plane than actually seeing the city I went see. So this time based solely on flight times I booked a quick flight (one hour) on Gulf Air. I left the villa at about 10:45am and returned to the villa by 6pm. My destination was Bahrain (a tiny island nation close to Qatar, in the Persian Gulf) which hosted the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix the previous weekend. Never leaving the airport once in Bahrain, I had about 2 hours on the ground before boarding my flight home. Good news was, for some reason they bumped me up to business class. While a nice perk there is little point for such a short flight, no booze (we hardly leave Saudi air space), and only time for a quick wrap to eat. Once on the ground I had only one task: find a real beer. Like airports anywhere in the world though real beer does not come cheap – about $10/beer, damned if I cared after having only two real beers in three months (at a Cdn Embassy function). One place it was 7 Dinar for two (1Cdn = 3.1BD), the other place was 37SR or $12. Bahrain’s claim to fame in this region of the world is that it is truly open in terms of what is and isn’t restricted in the city. Unlike all of the other Muslim countries in the region, alcohol, and the seedier things of life (strip clubs, some gambling) is not restricted in any way. In Dubai for example, larger hotels have bars for alcohol consumption but no retail outlets in which to buy it (I’m sure there is some way for people to get alcohol I just don’t know how), no strip joints (underground probably) and no race tracks to gamble on ponies.

Speaking of short flights I saw a Qatar Airlines Boeing 777-300 (a beautiful bird) which are usually utilized on long haul flights, and can fly 12 – 14 hours continuously, was boarding for Doha (Qatar Capital) a flight of about 37 minutes. I don’t know for sure but I would think a plane like that uses more fuel taking off than worth the trouble. However, the great irony of global air travel is airlines are tied permanently to their home country due to airline regulation. They can only make two or three stops in another country before having to land at the home airport. If you want to fly almost anywhere on Emirates (Dubai’s Airline) you will go through Dubai to get there. That's why you always know the airline people use to get here from North America: Luftansa (via Frankfurt or Munich), Air France (Paris), British Air (Heathrow), you get the idea. Either way my Visa resets are now finished. Next time I see the airport will be for my journey home, oddly enough about the same time for another reset had my contract been longer. 

One last note on airports; I shared with you on a previous blog, a picture of two teen girls whose faces were pixeled out in a shopping mall. Well I noticed at the airport going to Bahrain the women’s washrooms signs are the same, though less so to ensure you can tell which washroom is which. Either way I find the washrooms signs in the Riyahd airport in general quite funny:


Now back to the souq. Thankfully, I did remember (adventuresome maybe, stupid not so much) to mark the location in my GPS with the intent to return later. This souq is a crazy place and covers a huge area where merchants of every stripe selling their wares. You can buy new and used clothing that are sometimes just stacked in heaps or neatly organized on hangers, shoes of all styles (including the sandals I bought to wear with my thawb for 30SR), air conditioners, appliances, tools, furniture and carpet dealers, to name a few. All in an environment choked with cars, scooters, and foot traffic. Horns are used liberally as people park their cars everywhere and anywhere without apparent worry as too hindering traffic flows. Loud, busy, chaotic is what I find fascinating and just wondering about is entertainment enough. I did have a specific task this trip: find a thawb for my 13-year-old nephew. I didn’t want to spend a lot on it as he would he grow out of it quickly, and being the age he is, might try it on once and that would be the end of it. I have already secured the appropriate Saudi wear for his parents, so we will all be decked out Saudi style on what my brother and I call Dexter nights. This is a long standing event we have been doing for about 10 years now, in which every second Friday I go over to their place and all of us watch some selected shows (it started with Dexter and hence the name) along with a few cocktails (less my nephew of course). In any case, I find this souq again (with the help of the GPS I admit) and start my task. In one area of this souq, there are ramshackle roofs set up (with tarps and such) over quite a large area where clothes of all types are available, including a lot of thawbs. As noted, with the exception of tailored thawbs (yes like suits or dress shirts), the sizing is the length from shoulder to ankle, and then small, medium, large, XL, etc. to fit the girth of the individual. I secured a 45” M for my nephew and a pair of shorts for myself (in addition to the full-length pajama type bottom I already had) all for 18SR or less than $6, and of course, the 3SR to first have them washed and pressed at the dry cleaners. I wanted to get the short version of the under-thawb accessory because it is a little cooler and that way I didn’t always have to ensure I had clean white underwear. As these garments are quite thin, any other colour underwear quickly shows through. Unlike at home where women will sometimes deliberately wear something shear that you can see through, here that is not the look you covet - no surprise. Ironically, women here don’t have that problem, as abaya’s are always black and thicker than the white thawbs worn by men. The other interesting location of this souq is that it is anchored on either side by a Mosque, so if your timing is correct you are shopping to the sound of the call to prayer chants from two different Mosques. The video included below gives you some idea of the souq and the chant (which is something you here anywhere in the city several times a day).




In the picture below note the two black figures (it is actually three - you just can't tell as the blacks blend together) at the rear of the frame - that is three women in full Saudi regalia who I assume have responsibility for this mess of used clothing. A fitting metaphor in this country as the women hide in the shadows. This was a risky picture, as photographing women is, as my friend Ahmed will remind me, is "red line", don't do it. In fact when he was showing me a picture of his 9 month old son on his phone I said do you have a picture of your wife? A shake of the head and a reminder that this is not done in Saudia. Absurd by our standards certainly, but an accepted practice here.  

Rugs anyone?
Note the park of the white car which now denies two way traffic.

The previous night (Thursday – or like a Friday to westerners) was also entertaining. Our Managing Director Mark was in town for a short visit on his way to Japan for other work. After work, as is usual we went to Vern’s for ‘choir practice’ which was well attended that particular night with most of the team showing up all cramped up in a what became a small courtyard area in the back of his villa. Whether it was Mark himself or the free pizza he ordered for everyone that brought out most of the team I won’t comment on. Either way it was another good kickoff to the weekend. A little later, when some of the team left to go home, a handful or so of us left to another guy’s villa, and conveniently next door to a British expat and fellow beer brewer. Fellow brewer as the guys villa we went to afterwards also makes beer. Mark (the British guy) has his back courtyard set up like a little bar, complete with bar, patio lanterns, and a hand painted plaque his buddy painted for him declaring that you are now at the “Thirsty Camel”. There we had some palatable beer, and Mark (our Mark this time, not the proprietor of the Thirsty Camel), being a fan ordered up four shisha pipes for our smoking pleasure. 

If you have read my last blog, I mentioned a new restaurant had opened in our compound, and while commendable for their effort, I was dubious of its survival given the relatively small population upon which to draw business. Unfortunately, their start was not good. First off was that some other people I had yet to meet also showed up at the Thirsty Camel, who, wanting to support the new restaurant went for dinner. While there was no complaint about the food, the service was terrible, a long wait, and when food was ready, it was not ready at the same time. Hence, some of the party was half or more finished their meal when another meal was served. Our new restaurant, we were pleased to find out, also provides shisha pipes and flavored tobacco, which would be delivered to our villa when ready. This is significant as for some reason shisha use is prohibited within city limits. Apparently, outside the city limits these establishments abound. Well the wait was horrendous with some people making reconnaissance missions to see what the problem was. The highly anticipated pipes did finally make an appearance some 2.5 hours after being ordered. Again not the way you want to start off a new venture. Not an auspicious beginning – and I fear a quick end in sight! Thankfully my alcohol consumption was in control that night versus the previous weekend’s abuse of bad wine, and after smoking too much, wandered home sometime a little before midnight.

Notwithstanding the long wait, I did get a tip from a South Dakotan schoolteacher I met (also with a shaved head) that I must visit one of the Turkish barbers that have set up shop in Riyahd. It just so happened very conveniently located to one of the groceries stores we frequent. So prior to going to the souq, I found one of these Turkish barbers to have myself cleaned up. As Nick had promised me, a nice shave of my head and face was done with a straight razor. Unlike an Italian barber I visited in Winnipeg, some time ago, whom I found deliberately as he was one of the few barbers that still used a straight razor. Emeri, my Turkish barber did not use hot towels and the like. First, it was some spray on solvent followed with a gel not unlike hair goop that he applied first to my head then face (maybe it was but it worked). Emeri was a nice young guy probably in his early thirties who had been in Riyahd for a half dozen years or so (his English wasn’t the best). His technique fascinated me – a quick, careful swipe of the razor quickly followed by a quick swoop of his finger along the same path to test that it was free of the offending whiskers. I’m sure his finger was sore after doing both my head and face. While not required on the head, after my face was scraped clean he padded on some fine, soothing powder (almost like baby powder). With that left on, he picked up an electric razor with flexible mesh head on it and proceeded to run that all over my head and face to pick up any residual traces of stubble the razor couldn’t. What was neat was how he pulled and otherwise prodded my skin is various ways to ensure a solid contact was made by the electric razor. That done, it was then a quick trim of my eyebrows, ears and nose hairs (why do these hairs only appear in great quantity, as you get old?) I was complete and feeling fresh. The cost of this wonderful service that took the better part of any hours was 50SR (with 10SR tip), or about $15. A bargain for sure, next time I will try another barber (for a valid statistical sample) as there was a few within walking distance from the one I went into.



On a final note as I conclude this tenth blog as the weather is rapidly getting warmer, and staying warm. My desire to see 40 C seems just about here, as yesterday it got to 39 C. When I left for work the other day (at 6:10am), it was still 26 C. It must have been windy over night as the illuminated freeway signs flashed: SLOW DOWN – SAND STORM. It was hazy for sure, though not sure if it was any worse than other times. Sandstorms, another reminder that I’m not in Kansas anymore.

Palm trees, dates, and camels oh my!
Just where in the the hell am I?

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