The Saudi Experience Part 2

So what exactly does an ex-pat wife get up to in Saudi? The bus goes daily to the nearest supermarket and Mall, and if venturing anywhere else, a car and a driver are supplied.  An abaya – any shade of black will do – has to be worn outside the compound at all times, although western women can get away without covering their heads.

Saudi Arabia has little or no agriculture of its own and most food supplies are imported.  The quality of fruit and veg available in the supermarket was poor, but I’d been shopping in Ralphs in California for the last three years, I was used to a cucumber well past its best. 

My ex-pat friends explained the continuity of food supplies was erratic, hence the need to grab several packets of Maltesers  in one go. It also explained why I’d found several the boxes of Rice Krispies stashed in the kitchen cupboard. Buy it whilst you can, appears to be the western shopper’s motto, when it’s gone it’s well and truly gone and you have no idea when, if ever, it will be back.

After we had stocked up on food, we headed for the Mall, where I was surprised to discover a New Look – staffed entirely, of course, by men. A lingerie shop  clearly signed ‘Families Only’ had its wares on public display, and was one of the very few places with female staff (the Body Shop was another) yet images of scantily clad women on the packaging for pop-up swimming pools had been blacked out in another store (although in many cases the stickers had been subsequently scratched off ).

There were designated places in the Mall where women could sit and take a coffee, but I was told dining out was fraught with difficulty.  Not only did you have to time your arrival not to coincide with prayer time – if it did you simply wouldn’t get served – but women were confined to ‘family areas’, separate booths behind curtains. That’s really not my idea of a fun night out.

So despite the presence of MacDonalds, Pizza Hut and the American ice cream chain Baskin’ Robbins, I decided I would prefer to dine in.

I was told I had chosen the busiest week of the year to visit the compound; social life was rife.  There was the project team dinner, a birthday BBQ and the annual ‘fun run’ – as many times around the perimeter fence as you can in 45 minutes  (the winner managed 7, I managed 3).  

I did catch sight of the souks and markets, but forget those colourful holiday images of bustling spice stalls in  Morroco or Tunisia, Yanbu market was a shabby selection of vans and tents, elderly Arabs sheltering from the heat selling goods from the backs of their cars.  Down town Yanbu is grubby, dusty and dirty. Men gather on  corners, the buildings  are old, uncared for and decrepit.  Apart from in the Mall, Saudi women were noticeably absent on the street. Did I feel safe? No. Did I want to get out of the car? Only to  scurry into one shop and then back into the Range Rover to be driven to another.

It was great catching up with my old friends from California and I have every admiration for those wives who had committed to accompanying their husband to Saudi, but I knew it wasn't the lifestyle for me.  Days filled with gym sessions, coffee mornings, lunches, lengthy games of cards and presumably extreme jigsaw puzzling do not appeal.  I like my freedom. A nursery is provided on the compound, but children of school age have to be bussed to the International School half an hour away in town. The constant sunshine sounds idyllic, but even in March, an hour in the intense heat was about the most I could take.  In high summer the water in the pools is apparently as hot as a bath.

Although I was sad to say goodbye at the end of the week, I wasn’t sad to be leaving Yanbu.

On the long drive back to Jeddah we passed hundreds of camels, Bedouins herding goats and families sat by the side of the road, stopping for what at first I thought was a rather inappropriate picnic, until I realised it was prayer time.

We westerners believe Saudi women must be totally repressed, desperate to escape the strict  regime, yet at the airport, sitting in my abaya with my head uncovered, a heavily veiled  young Saudi girl gave me a look of pure venom. I had feared the hostility of the native men, I had been prepared for the disapproval of the the mutawa, the religious police, but I had never expected to receive a look like that from the sisterhood!  So sad that we have so little understanding of each other’s culture, and no opportunity to integrate. As long as she hides behind her veil and we are confined to our compound, never the twain shall meet.