Jeddah Suffers

I recently wrote about water shortages in Jeddah and how scuffles broke out between people queing to buy tanker-loads of water. Jeddah is now suffering from another problem - flooding!

After two years without any rain, heavy overnight rain last Sunday caused extensive flooding in Jeddah.

The photographs are from "The Saudi Gazzette". (I hope they don't sue me for copyright enfringement.) An article in the same newspaper commenting on the floods was entitled "Water, Water Everywhere ...". The flood water had mixed with raw sewage to become a disgusting brown sludge. The last thing you would want to do is drink it.

This rainfall was to my experience, un-seasonally early. Usually, it only rains sometime between the end of November and February. Some years you only get a few showers, some years you get a lot of rain. During the winter before I came out here, it was cloudy and rainy almost continuously for about three months. Since then, winters have been drier, sometimes with only a few showers. A few years ago the late King Fahd asked everyone to pray for rain since it had been so dry.

There is usually an abrupt drop in temperature, usually in late November. It can go from a pleasant 80F (27C) to below 70F (21C) in a few days. Sometimes, this change in climate is accompanied by the first rain of winter. If this happens, the temperatures can drop more than 10F (5C) literally overnight.

Mind you, we have become somewaht accustomed to the warm weather. When it falls below 80F (27C) it seems quite chilly to those of us who have been here some time.

The rain usually starts with a few fat drops of warm rain; sometimes, that's it - the rains stops after only a brief shower. Other times, it becomes a torrential downpour often accompanied by thunder and lightning, as happened in Jeddah. Very rarely do we ever get anything in-between.

The attitude of the authorities to rain in Saudi Arabia seems very similar to that towards snow in the UK. Most winters you only get a little of it for only a few weeks so it's not worth spending money on it! Most roads are not build with any drainage, so as soon as you get a heavy downpour, it immediately floods, as we saw in Jeddah.

After having no rain for ten months the roads are covered in a thin layer of oil, rubber and other grime. This mixes with the rainwater to produce a filthy black liquid.

Even when the rain is falling, the water is not clean. The air in Saudi contains is full of a fine brown dust powder. More when it's been windy, less when the air is still bit it's always there. Even in an aroplane, you only get above the dust at about 30,000 ft. If we have only had a light shower in the night, I can tell by the brown spots on my car in the morning. If it was a lot of rain my car would be covered in this brown muck!

The other problem with the rain is the traffic, or rather the drivers. In the same way that UK drivers are unused to driving in snow, Saudi drivers are unused to rain. Some drivers are very fearful of any water on the road and drive at 10-20 m.p.h. even on the highways, while others seem to think that it's not neccessary to slow down at all. The result, as you can imagine is even more accidents than usual.

A mischievious friend of mine, who is no longer in Saudi Arabia, used to go "thobe splashing" in his car every time it rained. A thobe is the long white cotten dress-like garment worn by most gulf arabs. It may well be more comfortable in the summer heat, but it is not very practical in the wet!

"The Pork Smugglers of Old Al Khobar Town"

Let me first explain that there is no old part of Al Khobar, or of Dammam for that matter. They were both founded in the early part of the twentieth century by some pearl fishermen who had fled from Bahrain. They apparently had some dispute with the British authorities who administered Bahrain at that time but I have no idea what was the nature of this dispute.

If you wish to see a traditional arabian old town and souk (market) then you have to go to Hofuf which is a two hour drive to the south-west from Khobar. A popular outing for ex-pats is to visit the Friday morning camel market at Hofuf. Since it starts at about 6 a.m. and only lasts an hour or two you have to get up very early to see it. As I am not a morning person , I've never been.

While many people are aware of the ban on alcohol in Saudi Arabia, not so many realise that pork is also forbidden. Some of the batchelor compounds provide breakfast and an evening meal. New arrivals would turn up for breakfast and see "Full English Breakfast" on the menu. However, if they order it they are sadly disappointed: the bacon is beef bacon, and the sausage is also beef.

For Muslims, I understand that pork is worse than alcohol. Pigs (and dogs) are unclean animals, whereas alcohol is not unclean, only forbidden. I heard a story about an ex-pat family who were frying bacon in the Riyadh appartment where they lived. The neighbours smelled the frying bacon and called the police. Not only was the husband arrested by the police but the landlord threw the family and their possessions out of the flat. (The man's employer found alternative accommodation for the family but I don't know what happened to him.)

Pork products are available in Bahrain supermarkets; the pork department is usually separate and hidden from the main part of the store. Since Bahrain is so easily accessible by Al Khobar residents via the causeway, many ex-pats will travel there over the weekend so that they can get a real alcoholic drink. On their way home they often stop off at the supermarket and pick up some bacon or pork sausages to take back with them. This is so common that, on request, the butcher will wrap the meat "for Saudi".

The customs officers on the causeway are less concerned about pork than alcohol. If they see that you have been to the supermarket they may ask if you have any "meat" - meaning pork - but if they find any, the worst that happens is that they confiscate it. If they find alcohol, on the other hand, you will be arrested and probably deported!

Several years ago a young colleague of mine went over to Bahrain for the weekend and arranged, with his friends, to have a beach barbecue. As well as the food for the barbecue, he also took along some tins of beer bought from a Bahrain off-license, called a "bottle shop". (I've seen one of these bottle shops - I thought it looked like a bomb shelter: no windows, thick walls and metal bars on the doors.)

Anyway, back to the story: unfortunately my colleague inadvertently left a tin of beer in the door compartment of his car. When he returned to Saudi, this tin of been was found by one of the customs officers on the causeway. This caused my colleague a lot of trouble and he had to do some fast talking. He pointed out to the customs officers that if he was going to intentionally smuggle alcohol into Saudi Arabia, he would have a lot more than just a single tin of beer! Eventually they believed his story and released him.

If the customs officers find a suspicious looking package in your car and suspect that it's pork, they won't unwrap it themselves. If it is pork then they don't even want to touch it; instead they have some non-Muslim (probably Indian) assistants to open it for them. Now these are not "assistant customs officers"; they are unskilled workers who also sweep the floor and empty the bins. After they've unwrapped your bacon, I'm not sure you would still want to eat it.

Often, however, if the customs officers only find a small amount of pork and its clearly for personal use, they may well turn a blind eye and let you through with it. On the other hand, I've heard several ex-pats complaining that they had their ham or bacon confiscated on the causeway. I've also heard about a cafe on an ex-pat compound that had a consignment of ham and bacon, worth several thousand riyals, confiscated.

For my first few years here, I hardly noticed the lack of pork. Now however, I've become like all the other ex-pats whose primary requirement for a holiday destination is that you can have a beer to drink and a bacon buttie to eat!

The Traffic

Warning: this posting contains some graphic detail of a traffic accident.

I was on my way to work the other morning when I got stuck behind a queue of traffic at a set of traffic lights. I could just see the front of the queue and, when the lights changed, I could see that only two or three cars went through the junction before the lights changed back again.

When I got to the front of the queue everything was explained. Two cars had had a minor accident and the drivers were sitting in their cars, blocking the traffic, waiting for the traffic police to arrive.

The traffic police insist on seeing the vehicles in exactly the position they were immediately after the accident. The most likely place for an accident is a busy junction so when an accident occurs the drivers have to leave their cars, typically in the middle of a junction, blocking all the traffic, until the traffic police arrive. The whole point of this rigmarole is so that the traffic police can assign blame for the accident and, thus, responsibility for who pays for the repairs.

Having been involved in a couple of minor accidents, I know what happens after the traffic police arrive. All those involved have their ids taken by the police and they have to follow the police car (if their vehicle is still drivable) down to the police station.

The Byzantine bureaucracy will then consume most of the rest of the day. Eventually, you will get the forms you need to get your car repaired. If you do not have this paperwork, many workshops will refuse to repair your car. Some back-street workshops, may agree to fix your car, but at a higher price.

The police make suprise visits to the garages and workshops and if they find that they are repairing a vehicle without the proper paperwork, they will get a heavy fine!

I’ve heard of someone who had a minor accident when they were on the way to an important appointment. Rather than call the traffic police, they left the scene of the accident and continued on their way. The following day, the people involved re-positioned their cars exactly as they had been after the accident and then called the police!

Shortly after I first came here, a British ex-pat advised me that if I saw a serious accident, I should continue driving and not stop. The reason for this, he explained, was that, in such a situation, the police would take everyone involved, including any witnesses, down to the police station and sort out who was to blame there.

If you were a westerner, you were, at that time, likely to be the only one who had car insurance. The police would quite probably blame you for the accident so that the family of someone killed in the accident could claim against your insurance.

Actually, it is not necessary for you to be responsible for the accident; if you are involved in a car accident in which someone is killed, even if it’s not your fault, you may still be liable to pay “blood money” to the family of the deceased. The following table shows the amount of blood money in different cases:-

• 100,000 riyals if the victim is a Muslim man
• 50,000 riyals if a Muslim woman
• 50,000 riyals if a Christian man
• 25,000 riyals if a Christian woman
• 6,666 riyals if a Hindu man
• 3,333 riyals if a Hindu woman.

(Can you imagine anything so discriminatory in the west!) Anyway the rule is, if you’re going to run someone down, try and make it a Hindu woman rather than a Muslim man!

Since then, the law has changed. All drivers are now required to have third party insurance; this is available from a number of insurance companies at a fixed annual price of about 100 riyals per person. When this law was first proposed, all the Muttawa (the religious police – a definite topic for a later posting) invaded the Ministry of Transport, complaining against it on the grounds that insurance was a type of gambling!

The real reason for their complaint, it is suspected, is that they all have very large families and this per driver insurance was going to cost them a lot of money.

Well, now that I’m on the subject of traffic, I should warn any potential visitor to The Magic Kingdom (as some ex-pats refer to Saudi Arabia) that the greatest threat to life and limb of anyone staying or living here is not terrorism, but the traffic. The carnage that occurs on the Saudi roads and highways, on a daily basis, is beyond belief.

Almost every extended Saudi family has lost at least one member in car accident. One of my young Saudi colleagues told about one time when he heard that some of his friends has crashed their car. He went along to make fun of them, but the smile was wiped off his face when he found out that one of them had been killed in the accident.

(BTW Saudi humour is very “robust”; another Saudi colleague told me that if a Saudi plays a practical joke on you, you will probably end up in hospital!)

Some of the teenage girls who lived on a compound where I used to live, helped out at a local orphanage in their spare time. Almost all the children there had been orphaned by traffic accidents. (BTW, there were over 90 girls in this orphanage and only one boy. Families are apparently much more willing to look after orphaned boy relatives than girls.)

Part of the problem is the small minority (mainly Saudis) who drive like complete lunatics. You often see them weaving in and out of the traffic at high speed.

On the other hand, you have a number of drivers, usually from the Indian subcontinent who drive very slowly so as to reduce their fuel consumption (after all, every 10 riyals saved is over 100 rupees back home).

I once came upon the scene of an accident shortly after it had occurred; a speeding car driven by a Saudi had hit the back of a car containing five Indians, and had completely sheared off the rear of the car, including the boot and rear axle!

Most of the Saudi highways have no pedestrian crossings. That means that anyone who does not have a car (i.e. unskilled Asian workers) who have to cross a busy highway, take their lives in their hands.

Certain stretches of busy highways are particular blackspots for pedestrians being mown down by fast moving cars. A colleague of mine once came across such an accident; he told me that he had run over a severed arm! This is, I guess, the result of a car traveling at 120 kph hitting a human body.

A favorite vehicle here, especially for those with large families, is the Suburban. When my wife first saw one of them, she described it as a hearse with seats. Actually, it’s even bigger than a hearse. They come in two engine sizes: the standard 6.7 litre and the economy 5 litre!

For some reason, when you see an aged suburban on the road, it is invariably driven by a bearded Saudi with a small child on his lap. (Seat belts have only recently been made compulsory for drivers and front seat passengers - you should have seen the fuss when this law was introduced!).

Not only suburban drivers but many others drive with small children on their laps; some western ex-pats, with typical black humour, call them “Saudi airbags”.

abuTrevor

Hypocracy!

There are some things that you come across in Saudi Arabia that strike the average westerner as being more than a bit hypocritical.

Here is an excerpt from an article in yesterday's Arab News:-

Misyar Brokers

I really do not know how an owner of a real estate office in Makkah manages to work as an estate agent and simultaneously arrange misyar marriages. Apparently, this man magically transformed his agency into a misyar marriage-fixing center.

In fact he has even prepared an application form that takes details of the groom and the bride. Prospective misyar partners can pay SR100 and fill the form. When two individuals are found to be compatible and who decide to see each other then the groom is asked to pay a SR500 fee. In case both the bride and the groom agree to marry each other, then the amount of money paid to the agent goes up to SR5,000.

. . . . . . . . .
It would have been more appropriate and convenient if our community worked on establishing charitable institutions to perform such tasks free of charge and faraway from greedy real estate agents.

Having an institution organizing and arranging marriages is much more reliable and suitable for young women and it saves the suitors the amount of money wasted in getting the services of real estate agents.

I think people should work toward freeing the concept of marriage from the shackles of unscrupulous real estate agents. There is a huge difference between land and humans and the contracts of marriage and real estate.

The article is not talking about marriage brokers but misyar marriage brokers. Misyar marriage can be described as a marriage for SEX. I found that the Wikipedia article describes misyar marriage much better than I can:-

Nikah Misyar or "travellers' marriage" can be described as a legal framework of marriage in which a Muslim couple is united by the bonds of marriage, based on the usual Islamic marriage contract, but without the husband having to take the usual financial commitments with respect to his wife.
. . . . . . .
The wife continues to carry out a separate life from that of her husband, living in her home and providing for her needs by her own means. But her husband has the right to go to her home (or to the residence of her parents, where she is often supposed to reside), at any hour of the day or the night, whenever he wants to. The couple can then appease in a licit way their "legitimate sexual needs" (to which the wife cannot refuse herself).
. . . . . . .

The practice of Misyar marriage is often different from the original intent for creating this institution. Wealthy Kuwaiti and Saudi men sometimes enter into a Misyar marriage while on vacation. This allows them to have sexual relations with another woman without committing the sin of zina [fornication].

They travel to poor countries, such as Egypt or Syria, and meet middlemen who arrange a marriage for them. Some men arrange Misyar marriages online. The middleman brings some girls and they pick the one that they like most. These men pay the girl's family some money.

. . . . .

A reporter in Jehhh has reported that some marriage officials say seven of 10 marriage contracts they conduct are misyar, and in some cases are asked to recommend prospective misyar partners. Most of the women opting for misyar either are divorced, widowed or beyond the customary marriage age. The majority of men who take part in such marital arrangements are already married.

. . . . . .

Based on the experience of the "misyar marriage agencies", the man who resorts to the "misyar" marriage is usually married to a first wife with whom he shares a residence, and to the financial needs of whom he provides.

. . . . . . .

Since he usually refrains from telling his first wife of his second marriage, the relationship within the couple is distorted, resulting at times in major complications which can even end in divorce, when the first wife finds out about the situation.

As to the second wife, her status is devalued, because she does not have any right on her husband, be it over the time he gives her, his presence at her home, or his financial contribution to help her cover her own needs. Moreover, this type of marriage ends up sooner or later in divorce, (in 80% of the cases, according to some), when the wife is no longer to the liking of the husband.

It sounds remarkably like legalized adultery to me, yet many in the ME think we are immoral and decadent!

There are other examples of behaviour that strikes us as being hypocritical. During the holiay season you will find the Saudi-Bahrain causeway choked with cars full of Saudi men.

They come from Riyadh and other parts of Saudi and leave their wives and children in one of the holiday resorts that are mushrooming in Khobar. The men then go over the causeway to Bahrain to drink and visit the Russian prostitutes there!

To be fair, there are many scholars who criticize misyar marriages, and the Saudis who visit Bahrain to drink and whore are not the same as the ones who say that western civilization is immoral. However, many ex-pats like myself still feel that there's an awful lot of hypocracy flying around.

abuTrevor

Alcohol in Saudi Arabia

I first came to Saudi Arabia on a 3-day "look see" visit before accepting the job offer from my current employer. On the very first day here two British soon-to-be colleagues took me to a pub at lunchtime for a pint of beer. True, the beer was home made and the "pub" was an illegal bar, but the beer was real nonetheless.

It is well-know that alcohol is illegal in Saudi Arabia. What is less well know is how much alcohol is produced and consumed in this country. It is a veritable cottage industry.

There are those who come to Saudi with the attitude that alcohol is against the law here and while they are, in effect, guests in this country, they will respect the local laws and customs. Others feel differently - for them there are many opportunities to obtain and drink various types of alcoholic drink.

One of the first things you come across when you came to live in Saudi Arabia is "sid". This is short for "siddiqi" which is arabic for "my friend". "Sid" is a locally distilled spirit. A one gallon jar of "un-cut" sid can be bought for about 300-400 riyals (GBP 50-60). Since this "un-cut" sid needs to be diluted one part of sid to one or two parts of water, one gallon of un-cut sid will go a long way. Sid is usually drunk with a mixer such as coca-cola or tonic. Personally, I don't like it - I think it smells like paintbrush cleaner!

Un-cut sid is extremely powerful and dangerous. I heard a story about a woman who came out to Saudi to join her husband. Shortly after she arrived, some friends came to visit while her husband was out. Being polite she offered them a drink and they asked for a sid and coke. Unfortunately, the sid she severed them was un-cut: it took the guests three days to recover from alcohol poisoning. The woman's husband was extremely angry with her, although it seems to me that it was not her fault.

Many people brew their own wine. It is easy to do - all you need is grape juice, sugar and yeast. Mind you the results are very variable. If you are invited round to someone’s house for a drink and you ask for wine, you are playing Russian Roulette. You may be served something acceptable or it may be absolutely disgusting - and you have to drink it out of politeness.

Very few people brew beer; it's a little bit more complicated than wine. However, most of the bars serve beer; it's obviously home-made and, for me, it's an acquired taste. One of the wives on a compound where I used to live brewed some excellent beer. Unfortunately, she returned to the UK before I could get the recipe from her.

Bottles of real spirits can also be bought on the black market. Last time I enquired, the price was 450 riyals (GBP 70) a bottle. A bit too expensive for me and, anyway, I'm not too fond of spirits.

An friend of mine told me that he once met a sales representative for a well-known brand of whiskey out here. My friend asked what he was doing here since there wasn't much of a market for his product out here. "On the contrary" replied the rep, "this is one of our biggest markets"!

You way be wondering how the spirits are smuggled into Saudi. One way is by passing ships dropping a consignment overboard and a Saudi fishing boat coming along and picking it up later.

Smugglers are, of course, noted for their ingenuity. A few years ago there was some "excitement" in the city of Al Khobar, over on the Gulf coast and a British ex-pat had to leave the country in a hurry. Apparently, whiskey was being smuggled over the Saudi-Bahrain causeway on a Coca-Cola truck. Unfortunately, one day the driver gave the bribe to the wrong customs officer!

Another story I’ve heard is about a Saudi prince who landed in his private jet, with his entourage, at an airport in one of the other Gulf countries. Normally, the planes belonging to members of other royal families are not searched out of courtesy. However, for some reason this plane was searched and guess what they found - crates and crates of whiskey and other spirits!

Because there is little entertainment available in Saudi some people do end up drinking more than is good for them. One last story, which may be another myth. A UK company had an employee who had a serious drinking problem. Since Saudi Arabia is nominally “dry” they thought they could help him by sending him to work in their Saudi office. Unfortunately, he ended up being returned to the UK suffering from cirrhosis of the liver!

abuTrevor

Women Made to Sit With Water Tanker Drivers

The following article appeared in Arab News on 1st October 2006:-

Women Made to Sit With Water Tanker Drivers
Somayya Jabarti, Arab News

JEDDAH, 1 October 2006 — In their efforts to end the water crisis, authorities at the Aziziya Water Distribution Center yesterday triggered another problem.

Women — young and old, shrouded in black, most with their faces totally covered — climbed up to seat themselves into the cabs of water tanker trucks alongside the drivers.

“It is either that or the driver will run off with your water,” said a security officer to a twenty-something Saudi woman, who called herself Muna, when she drew back from joining a water tanker driver in the passenger seat. She said her brothers were angry enough because they had already bent the rules in allowing her to come to the Water Distribution Center in a taxicab. With her father dead, Muna’s brothers, some studying and others employed, had full legal guardianship over her, but none had the time to either fetch water or even give her a ride to Aziziya.

Citizens waiting at the center remarked that this practice was improper. “How can they ask them (the women) to ride in the cab without a mehram (legal guardian). This is a clear violation.”

“Ride in the water truck beside the driver alone and all the way home? Ya rabi — oh my God — what do I do?! I thought things here would be different today,” she cried raising her black-gloved hand to her black-covered head.

Things at the Water Distribution Center were different.

Last week, countless citizens complained of foul play from employees working at the center. Foul play included: toying with the water prices, opening the water units for some while closing them for others, and favoritism when it came to water coupon and tanker distribution.

A black market in water had also sprung up amid the crisis, with water tanker drivers ditching the people who hand them their coupons (purchased at the nearby window) and running off with a truckload of water to sell at three to four times the price at the distribution center.

“The center employees encouraged us to sell the water on the black market,” said an Asian water tanker driver to a customer who had threatened to file a complaint against him for selling the water on the black market. He said the employees were in on the commission, so to whom should the customer complain?

Consequently the city’s Water Administration changed the entire team of employees at the center since earlier this week.

Indeed, the employees of last week were nowhere to be seen yesterday. Instead a policeman was systematically passing the water coupons to the women and men — in their separate sections — through their coupon windows.

The lines were in motion and there was no human congestion at the windows.

Additionally, the lot where the water trucks were parked was sealed off to the public in order to avoid the chaos and confusion that allowed truck drivers to sneak off with the tankers in order to set up side deals.

. . . . . . . .

In the parking lot, men in uniforms made an effort to facilitate the exchange of the coupons with the water truck drivers as orderly as possible.

Yet under the afternoon sun and heat, their impatience reaching boiling point with their fasting, customers soon began to trample on the organizational efforts. They continuously tried to grab water tankers as they drove toward the customers waiting for it at the beginning of the line.

Soon customers — beginning, mid and end of the lines — were breaking out and fighting with one another.

A security official, his face drenched in sweat that dripped off his face in streamlets, struggled simultaneously with three Saudi men.

A mid-30s Saudi man had broken from the line, hijacked one of the passing water tankers — a 19-ton tanker — and jumped up into the passenger seat in the cab. A second man, also mid-30s, was pulling him down off the seat shouting, “It’s not your turn — get down!”

This is while an elderly late 50s Saudi man stood obstructively in the way of the 19-ton water tanker shouting at driver, passenger and security official “Khafu Allah!” — have the fear of God in all of you! I am an old man!”

Men, waiting for their turns, shouted out their discontent when organizers gave women priority in both l9- and 11-ton lines.

“Aren’t we human too!” shouted a late 30s man as a woman, almost tripping on her abaya, made her way up with her three-year-old son, onto the passenger seat in the cab of the water tanker.

The man’s shout set off a dozen cries of “yalla!” — come on — or “mah yiseer” — this can’t be — bellowing from the men’s side of the lines.

“It’s true, this can’t be”, repeated Umm Fatmah, a Saudi late 50s woman, as her teenage daughter drove off in one of the water tankers sitting beside the driver alone. “There are no more men — how can there be when I’m here at my age and my daughter is sitting beside a stranger alone?”

Umm Fatmah turned toward Muna and said, “Put Allah in your heart and get into the water tanker truck. Don’t let your mother worry.”

Yesterday, the Saudi Water and Electricity Minister announced a whole raft of measures to deal both with the short term water shortages in Jeddah and with the long term water needs of the country. Hopefully, the issue is now closed, there are no more water shortages in Jeddah and the House of Saud will not fall, at least not for a while.

However, the attitude displayed by the brothers of the woman Muna beggers belief. They were unwilling to take her to the Water Distribution Center, yet they were angry with her because they had bent rules and let her go in a taxi!

This is a twenty-something adult women, yet she must have an adult male relative who is her guardian! This view of women is not far from one which leads to things like honour killings!

I really sympathise with the poor people who were struggling to get water. They hadn't eaten or drunk since dawn and temperatures in Riyadh are still arround 40C. Combined with the frustration they must have felt, it is little wonder that some resorted to violence.

However, when I first read the article, I'm afraid that the description of the chaotice scene caused me to laugh out loud. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't help it!

A word about Arab News: this is not the first article of this nature that I've read in Arab News. They write the articles in such a manner that they cause no comment by the censor, yet manage to describe some aspect of Saudi life in a way that will evoke criticism when read by a westerner. Very clever.

abuTrevor