As some of you know - and to others this is going to come as a great
surprise - i'm now living and working in J*eddah, S*audi A*rabia. It's
only been one week and so far it's been pretty good.
Before
arriving, i did quite a lot of research regarding what to expect of the
people and the culture and to be quite honest, i was filled with a
little fear, but after being here for a week, i have to say it was
totally unfounded. The locals are very nice, i can do what i want and
when i want and i can walk around the streets safely at any time of the
day or night.
It's really hard to describe the place as it is a
mix of affluence, scum and desert.. what's weird is driving down a
street that is rubble, then right next door is a huge, shiny shopping
complex.. There are shops everywhere and i mean everywhere. In
addition there are restaurants and fast food joints on every corner, to
the degree that i don't think these people ever eat at home.. On a side
note, shopping are open till 11pm and sometimes even later..
I
guess, the biggest concern people had with me coming here was the
oppression of women. I can only comment on J*eddah, but i don't see
any of that what so ever. Although they are covered, i see them
everywhere, mainly shopping or at the restaurants and more often than
not they are on their own and without a male companion. So, i can set
the record straight that they are not kept locked up in the house doing
chores or sitting frigid in a corner too scared to open their mouth to
speak. In fact, they have quite a easy lifestyle and in most cases are
well looked after.
Actually, last night was an interesting
experience at one of the popular shopping complexes.. Going to the
shopping centre/mall on a Thursday night (equivalent to our saturday
night) is the social event of the week. These women and girls don't go
shopping during the day, they go at night as "the place to be seen"..
The place was packed with young girls alone as well as families, makeup
to the hilt, the highest high-heels they could find. Men on the prowl
were also out in force. What i thought was funny were young girls
who's head should be covered, were walking around with no scarf, hair
loose and long, with the reddest lipstick they could find.. it appeared
this was the equivalent of us at thirteen, walking out of the house in
a pair of jeans and jumper and as soon as we were out of the door, we
would change in to the mini skit and skimpy cleavage top. I'm thinking
the generation Y kids are going to cause quite a stir to the culture
and rules of this country in the future.
Traffic is chaos..
there are no such thing as street lanes.. if you can fit in between,
feel free to create a new lane! There are traffic accidents everywhere
and i think this is what keeps the police in a job as real crime is
very low. Peak hour as i knew it was really a sunday arvo drive. Peak
hour here is cars bumper to bumper - literally within 30cms of each
other so you can't possibly let another person sneak in- and a total
honk-a-mania.. It is against the law for women to drive and to be
quite honest, i wouldn't care to anyway. I haven't seen one push bike
or motor bike, everyone drives cars, from bangers to Bentleys, everyone
has a car. High end cars are everywhere and it is quite obvious there
are a lot of very wealthy people who live here, but at the same time,
there are probably 100,000+ peasants for every one of those.
Most
men are very well behaved in front of women and are quite respectful.
I'm not sure if that's because i'm a westerner, or they are like that
across the board. The local women are definitely not wall flowers, so
they'd let some bloke have it if they felt belittled in anyway. The
only time i've been harassed was the other night i was walking back
from the supermarket by myself and this slicked hair Casanova armani
dickhead in a black tourag kept driving past me whispering out the
window, "coffee, coffee?".. I just glared at him and kept walking..
To
jump back a little bit, the journey here from perth was a bit drawn out
and awkward. Travelling to the area at this time of the year is
complicated due to H*ajj, their second religious holiday. It is the
time of the year where pilgrims journey to M*ecca, which i understand
is something they must do at least once in their life time.
Firstly,
Emirates were reluctant to let me on the flight as i didn't have a
return ticket and apparently that is some kind of rule that the
australian govt put in place to ensure the return of their citizens..
anyway, so standing for almost half an hour at the check-in counter at
3am in the morning with them going back and forth to managers and
superiors, they finally allowed me to go through. The good thing was
that with all the fuss, the lady forgot to charge me the $150 she
wanted for excess luggage.. i was only 3kgs over so it was bullshit
anyway.
So, after 11hrs on the plane, i arrive in dubai and that
is where the confusion set it.. the place was full, and when i say
full, i mean full to the fullest degree, of pilgrims in white robes
from bangladesh and the likes.. it looks like they were monks of some
sort as they were bare foot with beards and were constantly chanting
and yelling out stuff at regular intervals.. My layover was three hours
and i really had nowhere to sit, and every time i found somewhere, a
whole pile of them came over and sat around me, then i felt i had to
stand up to let the remainder of them sit down.. it was all very
awkward..
Anyway, so by the time they called my flight, i
realised i was about one of 20 non H*ajj people, the rest were these
white robe monks. I boarded, found my window seat, and sitting with me
were two of these bangladeshi's.. and i know they were bangladeshi's
because they had a sticker on them saying "bangladesh".. So, to cut a
dumb story short, by the time i got off the plane in J*eddah, the whole
left hand side of my arm and black shirt, was covered with fckg white
lint from this monk constantly rearranging his toweling robe..
I
wasn't looking forward to customs in J*eddah as i was prepared for them
to search everything and copy the data from my laptops etc.. given
that, i deleted so much stuff as well as movies i had downloaded - they
are very anti-piracy here and confiscate anything fake or pirated - in
preparation for the customs invasion. So, i get off the plane, i'm met
by a government official, who takes me aside to finger print and
photograph me (damn, now my fingerprints are in the interpol system),
then next thing you know, he walks me straight out the front doors..
huh? Do you mean i left my copy of zombie strippers at home for
nothing??!!
So, jumping ahead again, i'm currently living in a
hotel as my private apartment on campus isn't ready. I only found out
a couple of days before arriving that i was going to be in the hotel
and at that point i was with the impression it was only for a couple of
weeks. It turns out that i'll actually be here for about three months
which i'm totally spewing about.. Living in a hotel is good fun on a
holiday, but not for every day of your life.. it wears pretty thin,
rather quickly. The hotel is lovely though, so i can't complain about
that, and while i'm here, all my food is paid for as well as laundry
and phone etc, but i'd still like to be on campus so i can get settled
in to my new home. The only shitty thing about this hotel is that
women are not allowed to use the gym or pool, so as soon as i get home
in the evening, all there is to do is either go to the shops or just
sit in my room. Given the commute to campus every day gets me up at
5.30am and returns me at 7pm. it's not such a big deal as i don't have
that much time left in the evenings before my eyelids fail me, but it
would still be nice to have the option. I'm considering moving to
another hotel next week that cuts about 15mins each way off the campus
commute and allows ladies to use the gym and pool.
On to work
life.. I'm actually assisting the university's Provost for student
life. It's quite a relaxed department and as the name suggests, works
with the students to make their time at the campus as easy and
enjoyable as possible. My boss is an american guy and we currently
have a couple of american ladies consulting with us. Most of the
student affairs team are actually american, funny enough.. i guess its
due to the american culture of leaving home to go to university and
being outside of your home comforts that student life is such a big
thing. In australia most people just go to a local university so home
is always at hand.
Everyone that is surrounding me is a phd with
multiple degrees from high ranking universities in america.. for the
first couple of days that was a bit daunting as i'm so totally not an
intellectual.. It took a while to understand the somewhat dorky (and in
a way pretentious) sense of humour surrounding me, but now i don't
care.. i am what i am and they take it or leave it.. i think they need
a bit of loosening up anyway.. On my second day, my boss asked me,
"so, did you ever think you would be working along side harvard and
cornell graduates?" I thought the question was a bit fckd and snobbish,
so i replied, "to be quite honest, i doesn't really mean that much to
me"... he laughed, but i knew his nose was a little out of joint, so I
then tried to soften the blow by trying to explain that i appreciate
they are prestigious institutions, but, being from australia and also
not being in the university industry, it doesn't have the same impact
as it would on someone else..
I have a couple of new
girlfriends.. one is a girl about my age from Washington DC who is also
in my building at work and in the same hotel, and an older lady who is
egyptian born, but grew up in the UK but has lived the last few years
in Kuwait.. I think that is going to be the most rewarding thing here,
meeting such a diverse array of people. There are quite a few
australians on campus, mainly in the admin areas, so soon enough when
we are all on campus we'll start to create little groups..
In
regards to the living arrangements, due to financial crisis, they are
very behind on construction of the campus and city.. their priority was
to finish the actual university campus as well as the student
accommodation.. next came the family and married housing, with last on
the food chain being us single people! So, we are all basically
scattered around J*eddah in hotels.. It appears though that if i had a
pet, they would have found somewhere for me straight on campus as you
can't have a pet in the hotel. Saying that though, for some reason it
was a priority to have the soccer stadium. golf course, tennis courts
and yacht club completed, over the need for us single people to have
somewhere to live! They encourage marriage over here in a big way.. we
even get extra leave benefits for our "first" marriage.. lol.. everyone
had a bit of a laugh at the induction when they specified that it had
to be your "first" marriage only..
The campus is spectacular
enough as it is, but when everything is totally complete and all the
restaurants have moved in and set up, it's going to be it's own little
world.. We already have a 1000+ seating cafeteria food hall set up
which is cheap as chips, as well as coffee shops in each building, a
couple of gyms, supermarket, on site fedex and postal system, fast
food, outdoor cinema (while the indoor is being completed).. it will be
pretty exciting to finally be living on campus to take advantage of all
these things which are mostly free or subsidised..
Anyway.. i
think i've rambled enough.. I haven't gone on any adventures or sight
seeing yet, but i hope to do something next weekend.. i also have a
boat trip organised in a couple of weeks time. so i guess that is when
i will finally have some good photo's to upload..
Actually, in
two weeks time i have nine days of public holidays due to the H*ajj..
don't know what i'm going to be doing during that time as i'm not sure
if i can get my paperwork ready to get out of the country which will be
a waste of good time off.. If only i was here a couple of week earlier,
maybe i would have been settled with official residency status, to
enable me to actually get a leave pass..
Ok, ok.. i'm going now.. hopefully i'll have better stuff to talk about next week!
P.S
Yes, it is VERY hot.. approximately 35C/95F from 10am or so every day, with nights about 30C/86F.
I
don't have to wear the abaya to work or anything, but they do like you
to wear it at the shops or around the city.. i don't have to cover my
head though.. it's actually quite convenient wearing it. It now only
takes me about 15mins to get ready and you never have to worry about
what to wear or "does my bum looks bit in this"..