Christmas in the Kingdom

Day 0: O'Hare International Airport

As my December trip loomed closer, the number of questions I got about life in Saudi Arabia increased. My number of satisfactory answers did not.

Now, as I sit at O’Hare airport, embarrassingly early for my flight, I realize how painfully little I know about people, life, and religion in the Middle East; in particular, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most of what I do know lacks primary sources, to say the least. I have no Saudi friends.

So, I’m just keeping my eyes open. I’ll save the traditional tourist talk for those books: these are my experiences.

Day 1: Soccer

I didn’t even realize we’d arrived at our compound as our driver pulled to the side of a two-lane highway, where barbed wire and military barricades concealed the entrance. Facing inward from the checkpoint, the Al Romaizan sign welcomed us – framed by towering palms – while behind us the military-grade equipment loomed large in a different way. I was glad to be with my family again.

Somehow, we finagled our way into a men’s turf game. There may be no better way to connect with people than through soccer. Both age and language barrier seem to matter distinctly less. Still, on my first day, I felt out of place starting before a young Saudi striker (sort of the same awkward feeling I had while waiting to get through airport security when I landed in Riyadh).

An educated guess put the number of countries represented at seven, mostly from the Middle East and surrounding countries. ‘Bravo!’ was a rare and welcomed English interjection – not often said to me, out of touch with playing goalie. My younger brother quickly earned everyone’s respect by leading the scoring.

Bright lights pierced the dusty air and palm trees stood proudly just beyond the goals on the other end of the pitch as the late evening sun faded behind the compound wall. We played late into the night. For a time, the last prayer of the evening was spoken over the nearby loudspeaker and drowned out the sounds of the game.

Day 3: Edge of the World

We drove a few hours from Riyadh to the Edge of the World. It’s aptly named. First, however, with Lebanese music blaring from our SUV, we drifted (in the Need for Speed sense of the word) along sandy trails and a desert road that gave no indication it was actually a road. Our guide had done this a few times, for sure, at the cost of new SUV suspension kits.

Once there, the view was surreal. Miles of desert plains stretched before us, just beyond cliffs that sloped down to nothingness. There was an immense openness, emanating both peace and loneliness. A lone camel grazed beneath us. A lonely outcropping off to my right was big enough to stand on and people thronged over it, risking it all for the photos.

The sun set quickly, it being winter in Saudi, and changed the color of our photos in minutes. In one direction the sun, in the other the moon. When my mom got lost, wandering around, I figured it was time to focus on watching her instead.

After it got dark, our group set up camp, surrounded by our caravan of SUVs. Tea, Arabic coffee, and sweet treats I couldn’t identify offset the chill from the desert night while we sat around fires and on carpets. We chatted with people from all over. Mostly, I had questions for local Saudi people, most of them totally ignorant ones.

Hookah smoke and Arabic music filled the scene as a full moon hung heavy in the cold night sky, making bright the scene when I wandered off to pee and when the lights were turned off as we packed up for the drive home.

Day 4: Al Masmak

The Scientist’s Gift program provides free tours, dinners, and gifts to foreigners in a recent attempt at promoting tourism. Slowly, it seems, the Kingdom is opening up. We visited the Al Masmak fort in the center of Riyadh, where the royal family retook the city in a mystical tale of courage and bravery that led to the First Saudi State.

The tour was led by a middle-aged Saudi man who’d lived in Australia for nine years. He loved San Francisco and In ‘n Out. Later, I fact-checked many of his claims with a young Saudi we’d befriended. Most of it was ideologically accurate, but not reflected in reality, she said. People will be people.

After the tour, we visited an outdoor market and were given traditional clothing to wear. My brother and I stood out in our flowing white robes and I couldn’t keep the scarf on my head. Both are still immensely popular in the Kingdom. We wandered around, buying stuff we didn’t need, and the well-lit fort we’d just visited stood – squat and angry but filled with kings, history, and Islam – just behind the market stalls. Everyone we met was proud of their culture.

That night, we shared a Saudi dinner. Sitting on the floor, we all ate from the same straw mat. We had rice, chicken, yoghurt, dates, coffee, and other dishes whose names I forget. There was also a falcon brought in for us to hold, but I’m still not sure why.

Constantly, I had feelings of uncertainty that were tough to shake: Is mom allowed in this part of the store? Are there rules I don’t understand? A rulebook would have been nice.

Day 6: Christmas

Or, in Saudi Arabia, Tuesday. There’s no Christmas in the Kingdom.

So, we had a quiet, non-traditional day. (Traditions are overrated, anyway.) As we sat on the patio, enjoying the warm sunshine of December, the midday prayer could be heard from the nearby mosque.

Even in the short time I was there, the reading of the Quran became a comforting sound that peacefully washed over me, although I never understood more than a few words. If out and about, we had to wait around for it to end as stores and restaurants shut down briefly so employees could pray. Even on our tours, we stopped to let the guides pray before moving on.

The night before, our Christmas Eve, we’d attended a Western dinner at a nearby compound. The invitations were for foreigners only and the compound entrance looked like a Call of Duty map: industrial, grungy, and crawling with machine guns. (It was for our own safety, but nobody could explain what we were being protected from.)

Once inside, however, their compound surpassed ours in having a restaurant and bowling alley, among other things. Radio Killed the Video Star and other classics played softly in the background as we ate and there were other foreigners scattered around the restaurant, speaking quietly. It usually seemed Saudi people were always more interested in talking to us than other Westerners were.

On Boxing Day, we passed a Raising Canes, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, TGIFs, Chilis, and a few others I was surprised to see—especially after meeting people from Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka, whose food I think is better than anything in the West.

Day 11: Al Janadriyah

A cultural and historical festival like I’d never seen: three weeks long, representing every region of the Kingdom, neighboring countries, and a variety of ministry and business-sponsored events. Dancing, incense, food from all over, black-clad women in their hijabs and abayas, and people thronging everywhere. In the four hours we wandered, we only saw a small part of the whole festival. As the sun dipped down that evening, the regionally styled buildings were all covered in the same orange hue – uniting the country into one color.

We were given gifts of all kind, too. In one building, we received copies of the Quran and I chatted to a Saudi guy who studied in Oklahoma (he loved fly fishing) while my mom got a virtual reality tour of the mosques in Mecca and Medina – an interesting mix of past and future. If you’re interested in Saudi, they’re interested in talking.

The Kingdom sponsors students who want to study abroad for university if they’ll return for a period after. Many times, these were the people who spoke the best English. I was embarrassed by my lack of Arabic and bought a phrase book. It looked impossible.

Day 14: Dunes

Our bus cruised out of the city center and almost immediately left behind modernity. Desert from the pavement to the horizon, the expanse was only intermittently broken up by tents, oil fields, and the occasional house.

Civilization was scattered around this dusty landscape like debris from some great crash miles above. It’s a different emptiness than I’d seen in the States. A real emptiness: not bearing crops and barely sustaining life. Then, out of nowhere, a looming checkpoint across the highway – a reminder that you’ve agreed to participate in Saudi society and shouldn’t forget. I was hesitant of these, always, and relieved when we passed without issue.

Suddenly, there were rolling waves in the distance; waves of pristine, untouched sand. They dominated the skyline, as if challenging the oil fields that had held that position just before. We parked. Small wisps of sand blew over each ridge as the wind picked up, trying to wipe away the stain our feet left as we climbed higher, recovering the land we displaced with each step.

At the top of the largest dune, if the climb hadn’t already taken away my breath, the view certainly would have. The expanse, the openness, the sunset, and the untouched ridge-line weaving away. The highway, too, stretched on till it disappeared in the distance. It was almost a shame to sandboard down.

Commentary

In no way do I mean to oversimplify the current state of affairs in Saudi or the Middle East. It’s an incredibly complicated place and situation. But every place is. Most news only shows one side: the side that doesn’t reflect the kindness we were shown, the rich culture, the positive side of Islam. All I can do is tell my story.

While some aspects of Saudi culture may be tough to justify and to understand, especially to Westerners, most people are just people. From women’s headwear to family structure to social norms, I was constantly reminded how little I understood about the life in the Kingdom. Only through the people did I really begin to see beyond the reaches of Western media and my own preconceived notions.

Chatting to Alli, our guide, about how Titanic was “okay” and how he liked when long-distance cycling turned into week-long camping trips helped me push aside my reservations and bring something unexpected to the forefront of my mind: normalcy. We even ate lasagna.

Still, the icy breath I drew outside O’Hare as I waited for my grandparents to pick me up was more comforting than it had been just two weeks before.