Ma'a Salama Means Goodbye

We said goodbye to Saudi Arabia on May 9, after finishing our teaching contracts. We spent just over a year there, from March 2010 to May 2011. While we decided not to return to Saudi Arabia next year, we are glad we had this unique opportunity to live and teach in a country so different from anything we've ever seen. Our experience has been both difficult and rewarding, normal and bizarre, amusing and annoying, but the bottom line is that it was nothing short of fascinating.

Before heading to the airport though, we had plenty to cram into our last few weeks!

Janadriya

One event I was glad to catch was the Janadriya Festival, a huge annual fair north of Riyadh presenting traditional and modern culture from all corners of Saudi Arabia.

We went on a weekend evening and quickly discovered that we should have known better. The chaotic desert parking expanse was so full of cars that we had to walk for ages just to make it to the gates of the festival (and hope fervently that when we returned to our car, it would not be boxed in as so many other cars were). Once we passed through the gates, we were swept away in a huge mob of black and white - men in thobes and women in abayas - that was so thick we didn't dare let go of Misha's hand (don't worry, Sebby was in his stroller) and we kept losing the friends we went with. Magically, we actually reunited with them eventually. In the crowd of thousands of people, I actually had two of my own students greet me, telling me their names so that I would know whose face was behind their niqabs. I was amazed that in such a mass of people, I actually found some that I knew - or rather, that they found me.

Some shots:

Walking around inside the festival area. This was off the main thoroughfare, which was much, much more crowded.

Festival-goers wander down a recreated village street, with mud houses and shops lining each side.

Inside the village shops, men worked on traditional crafts. Misha and his American friend Waahid so loved watching the mat-weavers that we could hardly drag them away.

And this man took time to show the boys how knives and tools were made, shaped, and sharpened.

The falcon - a symbol of Saudi Arabia's heritage.

The kids got to admire the falcons up close and even pet them.

Men in a traditional sitting room with Saudi decor.

I love this sign. In case you didn't know, this is the desert. You can also see a traditional tent, open on one side, called a haima. (My only authority on this subject comes from Misha's school project he brought home one day. It looked just like it.)

A well on display, backed by beautiful palms lit from beneath against the night sky.

A traditional (recreated) villa, with rooms inside to wander in and out of. I love the shapes of the windows on the balcony and the shrouded figures passing by.

Josh on the balcony.

Inside one of the rooms of the house was a bride's bedroom, with a curtained bed. Some women there offered to take a photo of me with the "bride." How could I resist?

Dates for sale. I bought a kilo, and they were delicious!

Men from the Madinah area perform their regional dance for a large audience. Their intense twirling caused their flowing outfits to flare up around them.

Misha and friends pose for a photo with men in traditional garb.

Fun in the compound

Before we left, we let Misha have his friend over for spaghetti, swimming, and a sleepover. Let's just say we are glad we don't have three children on a daily basis.

Cute Sebby outside by the court.

Another accomplishment: Misha learned to ride without training wheels!

More fun in the pool. Any guesses on how long this idea lasted?

Our last dust storm. The dust rolled in and changed the sky from bright to dark in a matter of minutes.

The dust and wind create an eerie feeling outside.

Out in the City

We went back to the top of Kingdom Tower for a night view of the city. The two main streets, Fahd and Olaya, spread their light into the distance.

Throughout our year, we watched construction on the huge Olaya Towers neighboring our compound. We also watched construction on absolutely everything else. In this city, no matter where you live, you wake up at 6 a.m. to the sound of jackhammers. In the distance, you can see the Kingdom Tower - whose skybridge we visited for the previous shot of the city.

Kindergarten Graduation

Graduation! In Saudi Arabia, graduation costs for your kindergartener will run you at least $75 for the robe and the photos. Insane, I know. They get a little carried away with parties here ...

Misha's graduation class. He can tell me the names of each member of his class, and even the last names of anybody who has the same name as someone else. (Misha's in the front row, third from the right.) Note the King's portrait shining from the wall. In America, you get your teacher's photo included with the class. In Saudi, you definitely won't have a photo of your female teacher, but you DO get the King.

Misha made a nice goodbye card for his kindergarten teachers. His teachers were so fond of him that they were truly sad to see him go. They also had a goodbye party for him and sent him home with loads of presents ... AGAIN! (The fact that we were trying to cram everything into suitcases obviously didn't enter their minds.)

University Farewell

Once they learned we were leaving, our students really surprised us with their generosity and goodbye parties.

Josh's students took him thobe shopping and treated him to the entire get-up - thobe, Sunni underpants, sandals, shumagh (red-and-white checked head covering), taqiyah (cap for under the shumagh) and agal (heavy black coil that keeps everything on your head).

Of course, he had to wear the national dress to class a couple times.

They showed him various ways of folding the shumagh and posed for silly pictures.

Class photo. Josh is the one with the most obvious shumagh flowing over his shoulders and chest.

Another class picture.

Many Saudis, when they dress up, wear a suit over the top of the thobe. Josh tried it out and looked very handsome indeed. Misha said, "You look like a bad guy" - sort of like the agents in the Matrix.

On the women's campus, the two classes that I taught connived together to throw me a massive surprise party during class. They roped my co-teacher into it as well, using her to lure me out of the room for a brief time while they rearranged and set up the food. Then when I walked into the room, they yelled SURPRISE, showered me with two tubes of confetti (hooray for vacuums) and played Jingle Bells in Arabic from the e-podium. In the middle of the room, they had pushed two teacher's desks together and loaded them with sweets. The biggest surprise was the cakes - they had special ordered two huge cakes, each featuring photos of me which they had pulled from my Facebook. The photos they chose make me laugh - one of me by a Christmas tree from a year and a half ago, and one of me in an abaya in Riyadh. Very culturally diverse!

They also brought their speakers and music collections and pumped out forbidden music, both Western and Arabic, in the university classroom. I had to keep turning down the volume! We ate, danced, and took class photos ...

like this.

They also showered me with a flabbergasting amount of gifts: sweet cards and letters, flowers, chocolates, books, candles, a bracelet, a prayer rug, a necklace with my name in Arabic, thobes and toys for my children, and Kelimat perfume - an expensive Arabic brand. I had huge bags to lug home from work that day! I was truly amazed.

The rest of our time flew by running errands and packing. We ended up shipping several big boxes of things, which helped ease our load to lug onto the airplane. I just couldn't resist taking a packing break to make the kids a play house from the leftover boxes.

Also while packing, we thought it would be interesting to see just how much Islamic literature we had acquired, given to us by everyone from our students to our taxi drivers. This isn't even the entire collection.

More Goodbyes

We had to say goodbye to Sumayya, who had so dedicatedly babysat Sebastian while I was at work and occasionally Misha if his school was cancelled or he was sick. Sumayya loved Sebby like her own and she still tells me how much she misses him.

We also had a small goodbye gathering with a few friends. We chose a traditional Saudi restaurant called Najd Village, because I had never been there. Each party has their own room, decked out with beautiful rugs and wall decorations. Everyone eats on the floor and the waiters bring dates, Arabic coffee, and plates galore of all kinds of food - lamb stews, rice, hummus, kupsa with chicken, lamb and camel, plus sweets made with honey and dates.

Getting ready for the feast!

Sebby went exploring and found another room to investigate.

The women - Becky, me, Georgina, Staci, Corrie

The women again. I guess we're making up for something.

The beautiful inner courtyard of the restaurant.

The Kulas in the Kingdom - but no longer. Ma'a Salama!

Multicultural Birthday

Misha celebrated both his 5^th and 6^th birthdays in Saudi Arabia, but the difference between the two is immense. He turned five just two weeks after we arrived in Riyadh, well before we knew anybody here. His party was a family affair – just Mom, Dad, and Sebby as guests – in the hotel where we stayed for the first few weeks. We celebrated with a cake he picked out from the grocery store and some new toys to start him off in his new world.

His 6^th birthday this April marked the culmination of a year's-worth of new friendships and life-changing exeriences. He had a school party and a home party. I was thinking that they would both be modest but fun celebrations; obviously I was forgetting that the culture we are in seizes each and every occasion, no matter how small, to have as big of party as possible. I sent 30-some homemade chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles to his kindergarten to share with his morning class, as well as several packs of cookies to distribute to the afternoon group for the day-care session. When I picked Misha up at the end of the day, he exclaimed, "It wasn't just a little party, Mom – it was a REAL party!" He described how his teacher brought her own huge cake for him in addition to the cupcakes I sent. He had to close his eyes before being led into a room decorated for the party, where they sang to him in English and Arabic and showered him with sugar and gifts. We needed a super-size bag to bring all of his presents home – each of the eight teachers he sees throughout the day gave him a gift. And not just a little kleenex-boxed-sized gift. No, we're talking huge, colorfully-wrapped boxes and bulging, sparkly gift bags. He got car sets, a watch, art sets, and enough remote-control cars to fill up a cupboard.

Ready to haul home the presents from school.

We had his home party the following day, since it was a weekend. My simple plan of ordering pizza and having the entire party outdoors at the pool actually worked out amazingly well. He had four of his good friends from the compound plus an American friend, the son of another teacher -- and of course, Sebby (who can now say "birt-day!"). The pool kept everyone happy and active, and the weather was great for swimming, splashing and squirt gun fighting. After swimming came the pizza and cake (topped with a cut-out of Misha the Power Ranger, his number six candle, and outdoor-only sparkler candles), followed by a burst of present-opening. Once again, Misha received a ton of large, flashy presents – more cars, trains, coloring books, airplanes! He had such a ridiculous amount of presents that Josh and I didn't even give him the gifts we picked out for him until the end of the week. He loved our choices - treasures from the little stands and stalls in the old Dira Souq - every bit as much as we knew he would. A collapsing telescope, an old-fashioned minute timer, shiny mini camel figurines, and a treasure box with a secret opening are right up Misha's alley.

As our time in Saudi Arabia comes to an end, we are very happy that Misha was able to have such a positive experience here. Being in a local kindergarten has really helped him build confidence and interact with the culture in a much more meaningful way than most foreigners are able. His multicultural friends on the compound have also been great for him as he explores his expanding world.

Naturally, I took many photos of his party. Unfortunately, our camera's memory card is going to need a little persuading before it relinquishes the precious photos it contains. I'm sure eventually I can find a way to retrieve them, but for now, all I have is the one shot from my iPhone of Misha at school.

Thunder and Helicopters

Saudi Arabia as a country pretty much believes itself to be paradise on Earth, a place where Muslims are free to practice as they were meant to. Since so many people believe this, it's hard to imagine very much happening here as far as anti-government protests are concerned, especially when the government binds itself so tightly to Islam.

I was surprised when I first heard of Saudi Arabia's planned "Day of Rage," which was set for Friday, March 11 and planned through Facebook and Twitter. As the day crept closer, anything political or religious about any of the Middle Eastern countries became an off-limits topic in our academic circles. This caused great speculation and curiosity on the part of all the teachers, but we honestly weren't expecting too much, especially considering the general admiration of the king that abounds here. As a case in point, Josh's students told him that the greatest honor they could imagine would be the king coming their house.

As if to counter the effects of the planned event, Misha's kindergarten had a big celebration in honor of King Abdullah. Huge posters like this one were plastered everywhere in his school:

Children were encouraged to wear green and white (the colors of the flag), T-shirts with the king on them, or traditional costumes, like this classmate of Misha's who is passing out cupcakes.


The cupcakes, of course, had green frosting and little pictures of the king on them! After this, all the kids had green-smeared faces (and hands, and shirts ...)

The children sat in a circle on the carpet to eat their cupcakes, and when they finished, their teachers encouraged them to come up to the front of the class to sing a song of their choice. Several children did and were rewarded with doughnuts! Misha even sang a song for the class - his favorite Arabic song about the numbers. The teachers gazed at him with complete adoration in their eyes while he sang. Since I managed to pop into his class briefly during their party, I got to enjoy seeing his class and his teachers. I was especially happy to see how his teachers spoke Arabic to everyone, including Misha, and Misha understood just fine.


By Wednesday night, we noticed that police cars had already stationed themselves in several locations in the city center. They continued their patrol on Thursday (the first weekend day), and by Friday, the supposed day of the event, police were everywhere. We could spot five from our balcony alone. Several were roaming the streets while others were stationary in intersections. On King Fahd Road, the main North-South street in Riyadh, the streets were full of police with flashing lights. To add to the strange feel of the day, Friday arrived with haze and fog. The unusual quietness of the city was broken only by the sound of helicopters flying overhead, making the day even more eerie. In the afternoon, five huge military buses unloaded in the parking lot just down the street from us, and we watched the camouflage-outfitted soldiers mill around the area, stopping for prayer break to kneel on their mats.

A police car mans the quiet, foggy side-street near our balcony. Kingdom Tower shimmers in distance.

Military buses patrol the lot.

By late afternoon, a storm was definitely in the air, matching the general uneasy atmosphere of the day. Rumbles of thunder tried to produce rain for what seemed like hours until finally, a few drops started to fall. Suddenly, the wind came alive and whipped sand into our mouths and eyes as the rain started to pour down. Since we were at the compound playground, we grabbed our toys and headed for home, trying to carry everything and cover our faces at the same time. Once at home, we watched the storm from our balcony and were amazed when little pieces of hail plinked onto our patio. The sudden storm created such a fog mixed with dust that we couldn't see beyond the buildings across the street. But as suddenly as the storm had started, it ended, and within five minutes, the view was once again clear.

The huge show of police and military was enough to deter any protesting on March 11. There was a statement just prior to that day threatening to cut off the fingers of anyone who took to the streets in the March 11th protest. The day before, protests occurred in Qatif in eastern Saudi Arabia, mainly by the small Shia population (about 10 percent in the Sunni-dominated country) demanding the release of political prisoners held without trial. The Qatif protest resulted in harsh action, namely, police opening fire on protesters and beating them with batons, injuring three. Two days after March 11, police flooded the streets of Riyadh again, and we later learned that there was a small protest here, also demanding the release of prisoners. On March 14, one thousand Saudi troops entered Bahrain to help their fellow Sunni leaders violently quell protests against the government. Bahrain's population is actually 70% Shia, in contrast to its ruling elite. The island of Bahrain has seen incredible damage since Josh last visited its beautiful palm-lined streets.

Though we couldn't ask any questions, I got the feeling that people were relieved that nothing happened on the 11th. My students mentioned that the weekend felt "strange" and "scary" and that they were frightened by the helicopters. I don't see protests gaining momentum in Saudi Arabia - at least not now. Last week, the king announced a second huge benefits package for his people totaling 300 billion Riyal ($93 billion), plus another national day for all government employees. (Another day off from teaching!) Unlike in Libya and Egypt, the leaders of Saudi Arabia share their wealth with their people, giving them free education (in fact, the students earn a stipend if they attend university), substantial housing help, and study abroad opportunities. However, the very fact that the government and/or conservative religious elements don't want certain things discussed limits people in a fundamental way, and maybe someday that will matter to them.