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