I'm sure we've all done it. Created an illusion of someone based on someone we have just met. Then we make the fateful mistake of assuming that illusion and reality are one and the same thing. We soon find ourselves enamored by the idea of a person, whether it's because we looking for a soul mate or a new best friend. We place our hopes and fears into this person and hope against hope that our trust has been properly placed. We believe that this person is different and they understand us, complete us and will be with us for the rest of our lives. Then, the inevitable happens. They disappoint us.
Living the life of the expat I have learned one thing. People are rarely what they seem and certainly not what we want/hope/need them to be. When your options are limited, you make friends with anyone who will talk to you. You convince yourself that this shared experience will bind your friendship forever. You overlook things that would normally drive you crazy, and forgive what could otherwise be considered unforgivable. You are lonely and believe that the only people who can understand what that feels like are the people who have decided to live the same nomadic lifestyle. You are wrong.
The truth, as I see it, is that there are people who are meant to come into your life for a certain amount of time. Many of those of people are were friends of circumstance. People who would talk to you, that you shared a common experience with and as such were willing to overlook other personality "flaws." They were in your life when you needed them to be there, they were there for you, they taught you something about yourself, helped you get on your way or stopped you from doing something rash. In the end, the biggest disappointment is really the illusion that we ourselves have created. We must learn to accept this and move on.
In looking back at this year and my life in Saudi, I have learned a great deal about myself and the people I surround myself with. I have discovered the power of a real friend who may be thousands of miles away, but still knows exactly what to say and when. I have learned that true friends are with you regardless of where you are or how often you talk to them. They are with you in good and bad and have no problems in telling you when you are wrong or have made a mistake without passing judgment. They listen when all you need to do is vent, and will do their best to make you laugh when all you want to do is cry. While they may not know what it feels like to live where you do, they know you, and in the end that's all that really matters. These are the people that are with for the rest of your life and I have learned that we all need to take more time out of days to let these people know how lucky we are to have them in our lives and how much better our lives are because of them. Thank you to all of you who fall into this category.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
A Saudi Wedding
This week I was invited to go to a Saudi wedding. No, I was not invited by the groom, or the bride. I was invited by a friend who happens to know the groom and asked if I and another friend could come along. He said yes.
Now there a couple of things everyone should know about Saudi weddings. One, they start at midnight. Two, the are during the week. Three, there are two; one for the groom and the men, and another for the bride and the women. Yes, like all things Saudi, the weddings are segregated by gender. Which in my mind begs the question, and you were invited by the groom?
As it was explained to me, it is not uncommon for people to bring their friends to a wedding. Most weddings want to be large, and this is one of the few occasions that people (or in this case women) can gather, dance and be merry. However, I was also told that I would need a dress. So we went shopping.
Traditionally I'm a big fan of shopping, but shopping in Saudi is not quite the same (for reasons I have mentioned before). This time, however, I was faced with what seemed like an insurmountable problem, I wanted a simple dress that would not go above my budget. Alas, it was not to be. The dresses in all the store we went to (and we must have visited at least 10 stores) were horribly over the top (think sequence, glitter, feathers and bling... all on one dress) and excessively over-priced. So I decided to wear one of my old dresses. Fine.
We arrive at the wedding (fashionable early?) at 11:30pm. We turn in our invitations and are ushered inside a room behind a partition. Once inside, we take off our abayas and hand them to clerk. I hear what I think is some kind of door bell, it is not. It is a woman "announcing" the arrival of guests to the party. She's loud.
We are among the first to arrive. The tables are set (23 to be exact). The all have large center pieces, coffee, sweets and hours d'oeuvres. There is live music (four women singing to what I though was recoded music) and a stage. Add to this, the waitresses (yes everyone in the room is female) who are coming around with a bunch of other little appetizers and sweets.
However, that is not the first thing I notice. In fact, I am too caught up in all of the colors! I guess since women here are forced to wear black all day, they go all out when it comes to these events. Pink, gold, blue, white, red, purple, yellow and every color in between, and what's more they are all dancing! Yes, I'll admit it is still a little weird to me see only women dancing (with no men anywhere to be seen) but what is more this is a (dare I say it?) sensual dance! It's kind of like Colombian cumbia with belly dancing added in.
Now here is the interesting tidbit. The women are all dancing on this stage that basically resembles a cat walk, and the mothers are watching. I am told that basically the mothers are looking to see who among these single women would be able to "satisfy" their sons (because obviously dancing must be a proxy for something else) and be marriage material. So, a wedding is also a matchmaking session. Very interesting indeed.
The party continues, with lots of dancing until suddenly (at like 2am) everyone starts to put their abaya back on. The lights dim. And finally the bride arrives, with her husband (thus the need for abayas). They walk down the cat walk in a spot light while everyone claps and yells their well wishes. The couple stand there for a while just kind of looking out at the crowd (behind the lights). And then it's time for the groom to go and for dinner to be served (at 3am). By now, however, my friends and I are too exhausted and decide to skip the meal which consisted of a huge buffet of all kinds of things.
Clearly just another day (or night) in Saudi!
Now there a couple of things everyone should know about Saudi weddings. One, they start at midnight. Two, the are during the week. Three, there are two; one for the groom and the men, and another for the bride and the women. Yes, like all things Saudi, the weddings are segregated by gender. Which in my mind begs the question, and you were invited by the groom?
As it was explained to me, it is not uncommon for people to bring their friends to a wedding. Most weddings want to be large, and this is one of the few occasions that people (or in this case women) can gather, dance and be merry. However, I was also told that I would need a dress. So we went shopping.
Traditionally I'm a big fan of shopping, but shopping in Saudi is not quite the same (for reasons I have mentioned before). This time, however, I was faced with what seemed like an insurmountable problem, I wanted a simple dress that would not go above my budget. Alas, it was not to be. The dresses in all the store we went to (and we must have visited at least 10 stores) were horribly over the top (think sequence, glitter, feathers and bling... all on one dress) and excessively over-priced. So I decided to wear one of my old dresses. Fine.
We arrive at the wedding (fashionable early?) at 11:30pm. We turn in our invitations and are ushered inside a room behind a partition. Once inside, we take off our abayas and hand them to clerk. I hear what I think is some kind of door bell, it is not. It is a woman "announcing" the arrival of guests to the party. She's loud.
We are among the first to arrive. The tables are set (23 to be exact). The all have large center pieces, coffee, sweets and hours d'oeuvres. There is live music (four women singing to what I though was recoded music) and a stage. Add to this, the waitresses (yes everyone in the room is female) who are coming around with a bunch of other little appetizers and sweets.
However, that is not the first thing I notice. In fact, I am too caught up in all of the colors! I guess since women here are forced to wear black all day, they go all out when it comes to these events. Pink, gold, blue, white, red, purple, yellow and every color in between, and what's more they are all dancing! Yes, I'll admit it is still a little weird to me see only women dancing (with no men anywhere to be seen) but what is more this is a (dare I say it?) sensual dance! It's kind of like Colombian cumbia with belly dancing added in.
Now here is the interesting tidbit. The women are all dancing on this stage that basically resembles a cat walk, and the mothers are watching. I am told that basically the mothers are looking to see who among these single women would be able to "satisfy" their sons (because obviously dancing must be a proxy for something else) and be marriage material. So, a wedding is also a matchmaking session. Very interesting indeed.
The party continues, with lots of dancing until suddenly (at like 2am) everyone starts to put their abaya back on. The lights dim. And finally the bride arrives, with her husband (thus the need for abayas). They walk down the cat walk in a spot light while everyone claps and yells their well wishes. The couple stand there for a while just kind of looking out at the crowd (behind the lights). And then it's time for the groom to go and for dinner to be served (at 3am). By now, however, my friends and I are too exhausted and decide to skip the meal which consisted of a huge buffet of all kinds of things.
Clearly just another day (or night) in Saudi!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
La crisis de los casi treinta
So it has hit me like a ton of bricks, I am now 29, and lets be perfectly honest, 29 is practically 30! I realize that 50 is the new 40 and 40 is the new 30, so I guess 30 must be the new 25? (because really who wants to be 20 again?)
When I was younger, I wondered (as so many of us do) what my life would look like by the time I was 30. Clearly I would be married to a wonderful man, have the job of my dreams and probably a kid. I would be living in a great city in my own house and life would perfect. Little did I know, that instead I would turning 29 in Lebanon because I live in Saudi Arabia.
I turned 29 in the company of friends who understood that I did not want to hit this "milestone" in KSA because I was going to need a stiff drink to face the reality of what my life had become. The weeks around my birthday were among my worst here. I had gotten really down on myself and was really tired with the job, the life (or lack thereof) and everything in between. I was disappointed in myself, as if somehow I had made a mistake somewhere along the way that had gotten me to that point. Everything looked gray and miserable.
The birthday weekend itself was fraught with it's own series of problems. A friend of mine was detained in passport control upon our arrival in Beirut because was born in Iraq and his name was on some list. Turns out there are at least 1,000 people with the same name, and a number of them are wanted for doing bad things. On top of that, Iranian president Ahmedinejad was also going to be in Beirut for the weekend, so everyone was on high alert. A bad time to have a common name. Long story short, after two days of going back and forth to passport control, my friend was finally able to prove that he was who he said he was and allowed to travel within Lebanon.
As for Ahmedinejad, we actually did cross his caravan thrice! All in the same day. All within about an hour. The first time, we saw them in the distance as the president must have been giving some speech. The second time we saw the caravan drive by and were even privy to seeing men point their very large guns at us as they went by. One of them was literally holding the back door of an SUV open with his legs so as to have his arms free for said very large gun. The third time, we saw the caravan at what must have been the hotel where the president was staying. I think it's safe to say, that by then, the glamor of our "celebrity sighting" had worn off.
The rest of the trip was fun. We saw Baalbeck, the Cedars and went up the "teleferique." Overall, however, I was not as impressed by my trip as I thought I was going to be. I was expecting over the top partying and we didn't really do any of that, it was after all the Saudi weekend, which is right smack in the middle of everyone else's work week. So maybe that had something to do with it. Oh well, will have to give it another go at some point, but this time will make sure that it's a Fri - Mon kind of thing.
When I was younger, I wondered (as so many of us do) what my life would look like by the time I was 30. Clearly I would be married to a wonderful man, have the job of my dreams and probably a kid. I would be living in a great city in my own house and life would perfect. Little did I know, that instead I would turning 29 in Lebanon because I live in Saudi Arabia.
I turned 29 in the company of friends who understood that I did not want to hit this "milestone" in KSA because I was going to need a stiff drink to face the reality of what my life had become. The weeks around my birthday were among my worst here. I had gotten really down on myself and was really tired with the job, the life (or lack thereof) and everything in between. I was disappointed in myself, as if somehow I had made a mistake somewhere along the way that had gotten me to that point. Everything looked gray and miserable.
The birthday weekend itself was fraught with it's own series of problems. A friend of mine was detained in passport control upon our arrival in Beirut because was born in Iraq and his name was on some list. Turns out there are at least 1,000 people with the same name, and a number of them are wanted for doing bad things. On top of that, Iranian president Ahmedinejad was also going to be in Beirut for the weekend, so everyone was on high alert. A bad time to have a common name. Long story short, after two days of going back and forth to passport control, my friend was finally able to prove that he was who he said he was and allowed to travel within Lebanon.
As for Ahmedinejad, we actually did cross his caravan thrice! All in the same day. All within about an hour. The first time, we saw them in the distance as the president must have been giving some speech. The second time we saw the caravan drive by and were even privy to seeing men point their very large guns at us as they went by. One of them was literally holding the back door of an SUV open with his legs so as to have his arms free for said very large gun. The third time, we saw the caravan at what must have been the hotel where the president was staying. I think it's safe to say, that by then, the glamor of our "celebrity sighting" had worn off.
The rest of the trip was fun. We saw Baalbeck, the Cedars and went up the "teleferique." Overall, however, I was not as impressed by my trip as I thought I was going to be. I was expecting over the top partying and we didn't really do any of that, it was after all the Saudi weekend, which is right smack in the middle of everyone else's work week. So maybe that had something to do with it. Oh well, will have to give it another go at some point, but this time will make sure that it's a Fri - Mon kind of thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)