My Saudi Adventure - Part 2

Thankfully, if you’ve read my last blog post, I can promise that it really was uphill from there. I mean it couldn’t have got much worse. I did think I was on the verge of having a breakdown in the midst of Dammam airport, but rather glad that I held back my tirade as I didn’t know how well they’d take to being told off…by a woman…and an unmarried one too!

The next morning got off to quite literally a rosier start, as one of the waiters at breakfast came round handing a rose to all the women. A rather sweet touch. The compliments continued, or got a bit out of hand, as our taxi driver in the morning asked if Miriam and I were both Patrick’s wives (in fact Miriam is and is 6 and a half months pregnant with Patrick’s baby, but I insisted that she was his only wife). The taxi man couldn’t understand why Patrick wouldn’t marry me as well, since having 2 wives is surely better than one, and he proceeded to debate with Miriam about how much he’d offer for me. There you go - I almost became a Saudi bride. So close. Some dreams really do (nearly) come true.

The slightly surreal start to the morning was salvaged by the workshops with the children, who once again proved unbelievably cute. One girl came over to show me her henna, and her adorable sister asked me to draw an elephant (well, she asked me in Arabic but Fergus kindly translated what she wanted me to do, adding to my limited Arabic vocabulary the word for elephant, which sounds something like ‘fil’!) She had clearly over-estimated my drawing and cutting capabilities, but nevertheless I made my attempts at a ‘fil’ and cut it out. Her sister was clearly overwhelmed by my great skills and whispered something to her mother as she giggled. It turns out she was asking her mum if she could give me a kiss. I know. So cute. I was putty in her hands and knelt down so she could give me a big old smacker on the cheek. Adorable!

The cuteness continued as I helped Dima - one of our speakers - out with her drama workshop. It was of course right up my street, so much so that I think my enthusiasm may have been a little overwhelming. But it was still great fun. What was slightly less fun was recruiting people to come to it. So throughout the festival we had a problem getting any of our workshops publicised. Because it had all been so last minute and chaotic, that meant few people knew we even existed, which means even fewer people attended our workshops, so it was often a case of boots on the ground and recruiting any familes we could find within a 400m radius. This did mean marching up to people I didn’t know, and in a culture I didn’t yet understand. Needless to say there were a few moments I would count as ‘social mishaps’. One particularly striking one was when I approached a rather large family, the man in traditional Saudi dress and his wife in a burka. I marched up to them with a friendly smile on my face and began addressing the man, telling him about all the exciting stuff happening upstairs. It took a few seconds for me to realise he wouldn’t look at me. In fact he was staring into the distance above my head trying desperately to pretend that I didn’t exist. His teeth were gritted, his nostrils flared, and he was clearly rather pissed off. Apparently western women aren’t supposed to address Saudi men so forwardly. Whoopsidaisy. Needless to say his family didn’t come to the workshop.

The frustration with Saudi culture went beyond this mild misogyny, general inefficiency and lack of alcohol (especially during such stressful scenarios. All they could offer me was sugar and that just made my anxiety spike!) There is also a clear culture of corruption and ‘who you know’. So, after my own airport bag experience, 3 of my fellow travellers who were flying in the day after also had their bags lost at Bahrain. But, Thomas, one of the said travellers, knew a guy who knew a guy who happened to run Dammam airport. Having dropped his name a few times and called his ‘friend’, their bags turned up at the hotel, hand delivered a mere 8 hours after they’d lost them. The red mist was a-rising.

So the trip was physically and emotionally exhausting, and if you ever got time to have a sit down meal you were very lucky. Most nights I made it back to the hotel around midnight, but one night I was given the evening shift off. I went back to the Sofitel, had a leisurely bath, got changed, and went out for dinner with the rest of the crew. Some of them went on to have shisha, but I returned to the hotel to have my very own indulgence: a huge wodge of carrot cake I’d bought that day from the library cafe. Delicious! Sadly the carrot cake has now taken up permanent residence on my hips, as it transpires women aren’t allowed to use the hotel gym (except for out of opening hours, i.e after midnight or between 4-6am. I don’t know about you but I quite often find myself waking up in the middle of the night craving a quick sprint on the running machine?!). I hadn’t even really wanted to go to the gym, but finding out that I wasn’t allowed made me irrationally desperate to go…

The hotel was generally quite nice though, and some of the staff were really sweet. In fact the two guys who cleaned my room were particularly funny. They came in on the last morning and cleaned around me (which is always a rather awkward situation I find), and when they were done cleaning I heard this little cough behind me. I turned around and they were both stood there, beaming, hands by their side. ‘Did you have good service, madam?’ They asked. I of course paid them many compliments and said how wonderful they’d been (they’d been sneaking me extra waters all the time which was rather cute), and they then proceeded to point at a bit of paper. ‘Please, write it down, madam’. They clearly wanted a written commendation. So I obliged. They both pointed at their name badge - ‘I am Raz’ ‘and I am Padam’ - beaming all the while. So I did the only thing I could - write them a glowing recommendation!

On the final day of work I was allowed a bit of time off to watch a talk by Cuban Gooding Jr. who was hilariously ill-briefed on his audience, mentioning alcohol, drunkenness and nudity scenes! It was a light-hearted end to what had often been a stressful week of work. The stress didn’t quite end there though, as the next day we had to cross the Saudi-Bahraini border, but that went fairly smoothly (only a few shifty looks at our passports). At the airport there was just the hint of stress as the business class check-in queue was growing and rumours were going round of glitches in the system. Thankfully all was fine. I checked by bag in, went to the business lounge and eventually boarded my business flight. I made the most of being in Bahrain, accepting wholeheartedly the champagne that they offered. I must have looked desperate as I was offered a second glass when we’d reached our cruising altitude. I tucked into my 3 course lunch, my afternoon tea and watched a few films (the content of which had apparently been edited for their Saudi/Bahraini audience).

The flight home acted as an antidote to all the stresses that had gone before. My mood was mellowed, my memories dulled, and my shoulders lowered by the time we landed at Heathrow. I have never slept so well as I did that night, free from qualms, back in my own country and a culture I understood, lulled to sleep by the warm glow of champagne in my bloodstream. Delightful.

Thus concludes my Saudi adventure, and what more fitting end than champagne? (What would the Saudis think?!)