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February 04, 2006
Upon Leaving Foreign Climes, Gulf Hospitality and Sabotaged Reunions
Travelling to Saudi Arabia is always, to put it euphemistically, a rich experience. Travelling to Saudi Arabia from a Western European country as an unmarried fatherless Muslim female (on a direct flight that leaves no time for a merciful hiatus in a half-way house such as Bahrain or Qatar) feels like being beamed up by Scotty.
The trauma starts early, before leaving the faceless European airport. Travellers to Saudi Arabia are easily distingushable from other holiday makers and business travellers. They have that haggard look of the condemned about them, the look of the drowning man coming up for one last gasp of air before his frantic splashes subside. Saudi matriarchs sit apathetically as their children explore the terminal followed by even more apathetic Asian maids. Arab expat families and couples carrying their Harrods and Selfridges bags tour the duty free area refusing to sit down to roll over and die as the generic Lebanese looking woman circles the terminal in her high heels mindful of the fact that this is her last public performance for some time. Expat white workers are the most desperate of all as they sit in airport bars quickly and deliberately downing rounds of drinks, each one a different concoction. One doesn't know if this is to lull themselves into a stupor to soften the blow or if this is just a binge before the fast.
The boarding call is answered reluctantly as passengers shuffle to the gate. I cannot help but think that the team checking passports and boarding passes has a slightly gloating look about them. An Egyptian man at the door to the plane even said (in that eternally charming Egyptian way), 'Cheer up! It may never happen!' Weak smiles followed as I surpress a desire to say, 'We're on the plane aren't way? It fucking has'.
The plane is plush and new but nothing registers as I crash in a window seat and survey the in-flight movies. At this point my bête noire appears. A forty-something British man totally wankered after hours of drinking and looking to start a 'friendly' conversation to make the merry trip even merrier. He takes one glazed look at me, said 'You'll do' (why thanks I'm charmed) and crashes next to me. He turns to me and says, 'Going to Saudi Arabia?'. After the fumes subside I reply, 'No'. Since we are on a direct final destination Riyadh flight this response would have been perplexing to any sober man. To such an inebriated one it plunges him into a temporary state of befuddlement which buys me time to ask a steward if my seat can be changed. I abandon my friend, at this point trying to unknot his eyebrows.
The rest of the trip passes without incident although I do not manage to enjoy Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan (Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson) because both women were vigorously pixeled from the neck down. Not so tragic in Helen's case, more so in Scarlett's I'm sure many male readers would agree.
The plane lands in Riyadh and by this time passengers have sobered up and the women have sadly covered up their expensive jeans in black abayas. As we file out we are met by Saudi officials in military uniform rudely examining these most recent inmates and invasively staring at the women who have stubbornly refused to cover their heads. As we approach customs another officer roughly gestures single women and families into a line. Saudis and non-Saudis are also quickly separated. By this time, the remnants of defiance disappear as hung over passengers meekly follow orders and the few remaining spunky gals cover their heads and lower their gaze.
The immigration officer handling passports talks gruffly to a few women ahead of me as they fail to produce 'mahrams' (male guardians, defined as husbands or all men who marriage is illegal in Islam, brothers, uncles, fathers, sons). They are gestured into a waiting area and their passports are confiscated. They look slightly manic with worry. As I hand over my passport, I am aware of the rigmarole that I will have to go through due to the fact that I do not have a male guardian so I opt for a tried and tested strategy useful when dealing with Saudi male officialdom. I flirt. Outrageously. I uncover my face, flash a smile and bat my eyelids thanking God for mascara. So starved is the stamp monkey that he lights up, expresses sympathy re my father's passing and after a short cheerful chat, hands me my passport. I cruise beyond the group of marooned women who are only now beginning to realise their mistake.
Bags are found quickly and I take a deep breath, pull the tail of my head scarf over my face and emerge into the arrival terminal. A thousand expectant male faces meet me and they try to fathom if I am their charge. Most of the them are chauffeurs. I spot our own family driver and half scare him to death when I tap him lightly on the shoulder and say 'It's me'. He takes me to where my mother is waiting. I can only tell it is her because I reconise her spectacles, As I walk up to her she spots me and instead of rising to greet me frantically starts rummaging in her bag for her iqama (Saudi reisdence permit). I say, 'Aren't you going to say hello?', she replies, still rummaging, 'But you have to take my iqama back to the immigration officer or he won't give you your passport because you have no mahram!'. 'Relax', I say' I've sorted it, I have my passport'. 'But how did..' she starts to retort. 'It's ok! We can go home now,' I interrupt, already pissed off our reunion has been marred and that we have not actually seen each other's faces yet. I lift my veil, force a smile and say 'Now do I get a hug?'.
Posted by bint ash-shaitan at February 4, 2006 10:17 AM
Filed Under: Gulf
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Tracked on February 9, 2006 06:07 AM
Comments
1: What happens to women who don't have a mahram, are they just put in a room at the airport and sent back at the next flight?
2: To males: Why would such flirting (where it's obvious that nothing can happen even if the males gives the favour), work?
Posted by: Baal Shem Ra at February 4, 2006 04:39 PM
What 'fast'? Several of my relatives have worked in Saudi Arabia and got drunk in their compounds. Walking out was obviously a no-no.
My old man was offered anything he wanted from his boss, at his house in Jiddah, from an opulent drinks cabinet concealed behind a wall-length sofa.
Posted by: Pipe Liner at February 4, 2006 04:46 PM
Walking out was obviously a no-no.
...an opulent drinks cabinet concealed behind a wall-length sofa
I think you've answered your own question.
Posted by: eerie at February 4, 2006 04:55 PM
2: To males: Why would such flirting (where it's obvious that nothing can happen even if the males gives the favour), work?
Ah - you have clearly (and presumably will never) experience life as a woman in the Southern Gulf!
Desperation-driven wishful thinking?
And that goes for women as well as men. And not always wishful, once you pull the veil over your face and put on a fake wedding ring or what have you.
Posted by: secretdubai at February 4, 2006 05:23 PM
Desperation-driven wishful thinking?
Indeed. Flirting with a ticket agent put me ahead of 30 standby passengers for a flight to Kuwait. Business class. Not like I was ever going to see the guy again either.
Posted by: eerie at February 4, 2006 05:28 PM
Baal Shem Ra- Women who don't have mahrams are held until the official body at which they are employed sends a representative to pick them up if they are non-Saudi expats. If they are Saudis they just have to wait until a mahram picks them up or if an older female member of the family (known as rifqa aamina or safe company, denoting a woman of post-menopausal age) can prove that the female in question is her legal responsibility. For example in the case of mother and daughter.
Re flirting working, I second Secret,the desperately hungry still want a taste even if they know they are not going to be invited to the meal.
Posted by: Bint at February 4, 2006 05:56 PM
Pipe Liner, hardly equates to sauntering down to the pub now does it?
Posted by: Bint at February 4, 2006 06:09 PM
Ya bint..
What really gets me is when there are women who will not unveil to let the male officer make sure that they are the ones on the passport. They then have to be sent behind a screen to unveil before a woman who then sends them back with her own stamp, all this while the line is waiting. How bloody long does that take? And it only pisses off the officer more and makes it harder to start a flirty conversation I would suspect.
Always much worse in the summer when there are plenty of die hard Wahabis on the plane returning from sober holiday destinations around Europe.
Posted by: Meph at February 4, 2006 06:34 PM
An Egyptian man at the door to the plane even said (in that eternally charming Egyptian way), 'Cheer up! It may never happen!'
Ah, Egyptians.
Else, re KSA and Saudiya nonesense, well at least a visit can generally generate some absurdist tale of woe. Among my favourites was one from a colleage at my old fund which involved split pants from a slip in the airport, the religious police, forced visits to tailors and missed meetings because of the same and obligatory prayers for all involved.
Hilarious story.
I would also add that this is excellent, brilliant:
he generic Lebanese looking woman circles the terminal in her high heels mindful of the fact that this is her last public performance for some time.
Yet so few of our readers will quite understand.
Posted by: The Lounsbury at February 5, 2006 12:12 AM
Lounsbury- indeed, obligatory prayers have a butterfly effect in KSA. Many people wonder what would have been different if they hadn't missed that deadline because everything was shut down for evening prayer.
As for the last dance of the Leb in the limelight, if any of our readers do not quite understand them they can at least spot them. Next time they are in an airport in the vicinity of anyone going to Saudi, the generic female in question is the only one who looks like she stepped out of a cabaret.
Posted by: Bint at February 5, 2006 06:06 AM
General --
Re: flirting. I don't think the effectiveness of it on officialdom or anyone-with-power-dom requires a specific MENA twist, though the details of how and when may vary.
Posted by: matthew hogan at February 5, 2006 09:29 AM
"Ah - you have clearly (and presumably will never) experience life as a woman in the Southern Gulf!"
Indeed, this would require changes I am unwilling to go through with.
Posted by: Baal Shem Ra at February 5, 2006 10:21 AM
Matthew- I don't think an Arab female trying to enter the US with a passport lacking the right visa requirements would have gotten away with it as easily as bint ash-shaitan did.
Posted by: Meph at February 5, 2006 05:24 PM
