WEEK 1

Riyadh ,  the city in the desert….was it worth the wait?

So I left my cosy editorial job as an editor exactly 3 months and 3 weeks ago, completed my CELTA course, and literally the next day was offered a job teaching English at the King Saud University in Riyadh. After a lengthy and anxious 10-week wait for that holy grail, the Saudi visa, I am FINALLY in Saudi Arabia!!!

In spite of the good-natured scaremongering and horrified expressions I encountered from several people when I told them I was Saudi-bound, I can honestly say this has been the best decision of my life/career so far. Yes, it would have made more sense to have chosen an easier place to live for my first time in the Middle East, but Dubai can wait…I’m loving Riyadh, the garden of the desert!

Despite my weeks of research into  life in the Kingdom for single, Western, non-Muslim women, I think the culture shock hit me as soon as I boarded the plane into Riyadh and realised that I could barely see another female anywhere in sight, and the few I did spot were fully-covered Saudis accompanied by their menfolk.

I had been warned to expect a thorough strip-search of luggage at the airport, to prevent the admission of all sorts of contraband into the Kingdom…but I didn’t even pass a whiff of scary customs, apart from a luggage scanner, at the airport. Damn, all those bacon sandwiches I could have smuggled in!  ;­­­-)

Landing in Riyadh around 10pm on Friday 1^st October, I walked right into my first experience of ‘single-lone-woman-in-heavily-male-dominated-society’. Lone female travellers anywhere in Saudi Arabia are looked on with some curiosity/surprise/slight disdain, which I was prepared for, but it didn’t help that a miscommunication issue meant my agency hadn’t  sent the promised driver to meet me at King Khalid Airport on my arrival (single Western women must be met by their employer/driver on arrival to the Kingdom).  I spent the next hour frantically running around looking for my name on all the taxi drivers’ placards, and rejecting various, errrm, ‘offers’ from drivers amused at the sight of a flustered single woman, flailing around awkwardly in an abaya with no obvious male guardian/employer on her arrival to the Kingdom. Not having a functioning Saudi sim card yet, and with my battery conveniently dying, plus not speaking more than 3 words of Arabic, I thought I was going to be stranded in the airport for hours and probably thrown in jail for walking around without a sufficient male guardian, until I was finally approached by a kindly-looking taxi driver who found me somewhere to charge my phone and let me call my employer from his mobile. By this point, I really didn’t care if I got into trouble for talking to a man I wasn’t related to.

Long story short, everything was ok in the end. Got my employer out of bed and he delivered me to my temporary hotel and made sure I was ok. Not a funny experience at the time, but definitely was with hindsight!

I’m apparently staying in one of the safest women-only hotels in Riyadh, and the apartment is quite spacious and air-conditioned to the point of freezing.

Temporary apartment living room

Bedroom

Was sorely disappointed at not being woken up by a beautiful Arabian dawn on Saturday morning.  Frustratingly, the windows in the hotel rooms are ridiculously high and heavily draped, so not a lot of natural light gets in. This being Saudi, it probably is for the protection of us helpless females from the prying eyes of the outside world.

Having spent the first day indoors resting (for my own benefit) and becoming acquainted with my hotel apartment, I still hadn’t seen Riyadh in the daylight.  My driver was sent to pick me up in the evening to take me to the local shopping jaunt, Granada Mall, to get some essentials.  For my first foray into the Kingdom I nervously arranged and re-arranged my abaya (absolutely compulsory for all women in most parts of the Kingdom) and headscarf (negotiable in certain areas of the kingdom), but there really is no way to look better than anyone else in an abaya and headscarf. You’re just, sort of, there.  Like a black shadows flitting around on the streets. But I’m not complaining. It’s actually comfortable, loose and airy, so it hides a multitude of sins after an indulgent Arabian feast and you just throw it on over everything – or nothing (!) you’re wearing underneath. Plus, I feel like I fit in with Saudi culture and tradition.

Even though Granada Mall is relatively small, as far as Saudi shopping malls go, I was still impressed – and this is from a girl who lives near Westfield in London. In fact, half of the brands were familiar British and American names. Saudis take shopping very seriously...

Deserted mall during prayer time...

The Saudi Barbie!

 

Nice to see a familiar face!


I was already aware that shops and businesses in Saudi close 5 times a day for prayer, (you literally have to leave the shop) but it still felt like the longest 20-25 mins of my day. Mental note to self – do not plan shopping trips during prayer times in future… still, it gave me a chance to explore the mall, although you have to fight to get back to the front of the queue you were in once prayers are over.

First day of my new job the next day couldn’t have started worse. The company driver was temporarily indisposed, and replaced by a taxi driver who claimed he knew where King Saud University was. What should have been a half hour journey turned into a three hour drive around Riyadh. I called my supervisor to justify the lateness, then appreciated the fact that my rubbish driver had given me the opportunity to finally see Riyadh during sunlight for the first time. What did I think of it? Well, for a city built in the desert, it’s not bad. Some stunning buildings and homes, but a lot of the city is still being built up, so piles of rubble sit next door to gorgeous urban towers.

But the traffic! O.M.G. Like nothing I’ve seen in London before. My driver has to pick me up by 6:30 to guarantee I can sign in at work before 8am. I can also verify that Saudi men (women aren’t allowed to drive in Saudi) are insane drivers. Apparently, their driving philosophy is ‘insh’allah’ – whatever Allah wills – if you crash, you crash! Also, there’s no evident age for driving in the Kingdom. If a boy’s father decides his son is ready to drive, that’s it. Hence the pre-pubescent boy I saw doing his own school run down King Abdullah Street…

The Preparatory Year at King Saud University is where 17-19 year olds go to learn English before starting university, and as teachers can only teach their own gender, I’m located at the female campus. Had quite a good first few days there – met teachers from all over the world, and everyone seems really lovely. There’s a really strong community feeling as a result of expats living in a completely strange land together. The dress code at work is nowhere near as severe as I thought it would be. Abayas are actually banned inside the campus, in order to preserve the free-thinking status of the University, and as long as hemlines reach below the calf (trousers not allowed), sleeves don’t reveal too much upper arm, and necklines are not obscene, you can pretty much wear what you want.

After a few days of getting to know the campus and induction/admin sessions, I started teaching the Level 6 class I’ve been assigned to, which is the highest level where they pretty much speak like native English speakers.  It’s not so much teaching them English language CELTA-style, but more teaching them how to speak and write advanced English for academic purposes.

Probably the weirdest thing I’m getting used to is the working week in Saudi Arabia, which is from Saturday to Wednesday, so my weekend is Thursday and Friday. I get to gloat on Wednesday afternoons, but am very jealous of everyone back home come Friday night!

This weekend, for my first proper outing in Riyadh a few of us teachers arranged a trip to the Globe Restaurant in the gorgeous Al Faisaliah Tower, where you can have High Tea overlooking Riyadh at nauseating heights (see pic).


The Globe Restaurant is right up there in the globe

The service was fantastic, food was enticing, and the views were breathtaking. We had intended to go down to the shopping malls after the High Tea, but we were far too content to move a muscle.

PICS FROM HIGH TEA AT THE GLOBE RESTAURANT, AL FAISALIAH

The Funhouse below the Mall in Faisaliah Tower

  

On Friday, just did some grocery shopping at the Panda Hypermarket, discovered the thousands of Islamic channels on Saudi TV, and a few English speaking stations to keep me entertained.

It wouldn’t be a proper Sunday for me without church, (out of the question in Saudi) but good old Kensington Temple’s videos are keeping me going!

So, my conclusive thoughts on Saudi Arabia after one week:

-Provided you don’t spend too long outside, the 39 degrees heat is actually bearable

-I have no problem wearing the abaya – I like blending in with Saudi women, although I look forward to the day when I can climb in and out of my driver’s 4x4 without tripping myself up on the floor-length garment. Seriously, how do Saudi women do it so gracefully?

-I have to get used to the fact that I will constantly be gawped at the whole time if I remove my headscarf – the tell-tale sign that I’m a non-Muslim Westerner

-I have reconciled myself to the fact that if you phone for takeaways in Saudi, you will 90% NOT get what you ordered. I reached this conclusion after ordering a beef burger with fries, and getting a chicken burger, with the fries laid inside the buns (??!!) and then ordering a chicken pizza and getting a tuna and veg delivered. And no, this was not a result of communication issues – it just seems what you actually want as a foreigner  in Saudi is ultimately irrelevant!

Enjoy the pics guys – Saudis can be quite funny about where/how/who you take pictures, but I’m trying my best to get good snaps.

Looking forward to my adventures this week…