Our Journeys, Our Enrichment

Toni Stroud does a good job of relating the intangibles of a place, what it feels like, what its personality is, how its heart pulses. I like the fact that she aims to do this. So her article on her 10-day visit to Israel and Palestine last April has a local color and a local flavor.

Toni Stroud (image credit)

For example, as she took a cab from Ben Gurion Airport at 1 AM to the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, her driver said he could take her only so far, because he wasn’t familiar with “that part of the city.” Thankfully, for Stroud, he helped her transfer to another cabdriver who was familiar, and even took money out of the $50 fare he agreed to, to pay the second driver. The fact that Stroud, traveling alone, wasn’t ripped off is testament to the existence of good people in the world, even though, to be sure, not all people are good.

I would’ve wanted to find out more about why the first driver took her no further. Certainly Stroud found it curious and strange, especially as the hotel she was traveling to was well-known. Maybe some personal discomfort on his part, religious or otherwise.

Riding with Rashid

This incident reminds me of a very different experience, not at all odd but definitely curious. In my first trip to Bahrain in March 2002, I befriended a cabdriver, Rashid, a Yemeni man in his 60s. I called him once or twice after I did, so he could pick me up, for example, at the National Museum and take me back to the hotel.

He agreed to take me on a tour of Bahrain, and like Stroud’s cabdriver, he didn’t at all try to rip me off.  All for 20 Dinars.  It was, in retrospect, a very kindly, very graceful gesture on his part. He drove me to the Bahrain Fort, where he stopped the meter, turned off his cab, walked to a shanty by a post, and prayed; while I walked around and took photos.  Later on, at the small Oil Museum, he kindly asked the security guard if I could take photos; I asked him to ask the guard.  Finally, he took me to the Tree of Life, an anticlimactic visit, given glowing descriptions of it from booklets; given, in reality, the trash and graffiti surrounding and on that venerable tree. It was a nearly day tour for about $51. 

Dealing with the unpleasant

It wasn’t all pleasant, and this is another thing I liked about how Stroud accounted for her travels. For example, some shopkeepers, apparently desperate for sales, tried to block her exit from their shops when she didn’t purchase anything.

I got a bit ornery in Dubai recently, particularly when I was grocery shopping at the City Market near the Ramee Hotel Apartments where I’ve stayed the last two visits. There’s sometimes of a free-for-all atmosphere in the Middle East:  people casually cutting in line, as if you don’t notice them; people standing close to you, etc. 

Souq (markets) in Dubai (2004)

In this instance, one of the clerks was finishing bagging my stuff, but stopped to offer to bag another shopper’s clothing purchase. The shopper said he didn’t have to, but the clerk insisted, so the shopper relented. In the meantime, the shopper was standing too close to me (i.e., had entered my personal, Western-derived space), then passed his clothing (colorful boxer underwear or swimwear, I wasn’t sure which) right in front of my face. Worse, the clerk did the same thing, after he bagged these items, passing it back right in front of my face.

Remember, I was in an ornery mood, so I pushed the bag and his hand down. The clerk wasn’t pleased, of course, and I said, “You’re passing it right in front of my face!” I angrily picked up my bags. Admittedly, I got nervous at my gesture and hurriedly started to walk out, when this clerk, bless his heart, pointed out that I forgot one of my bags.

Anyway, Stroud’s experience with the shopkeepers reminded me of this incident.  In a foreign country, especially in the Middle East, a Western traveler has to be careful about what he or she pushes back on. Otherwise I fear that things might get quickly comprising for me, real ugly in a way I wouldn’t want it to,  without recourse to American authorities. By and large, I’ve worked discreetly to avoid such situations. But I suppose if that were to have happened to me, I might have gone ahead and purchased some small item in the shop, which I imagine Stroud did.

Enriching our lives

Stroud waxed lyrically, too:

The sound of prayer mixing with birdsong at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the most scared spot in the Jewish religion

The soft golden glow from the Dome of the Rock

The choice of two crucifixion/empty tomb locations

The dramatic descent from the Judean Desert to the Dead Sea

The ancient mosaic tile floor in dozens of churches and synagogues and Roman ruins

The flowers simply everywhere in Tiberias

I wish Stroud had offered more background, more history, more facts about these places and these events. For me, it’s not just the experience that gives me a feel for a place, but also the intellect that cements my connection with that place.

Nonetheless, I especially love the following from her:

Not only have I, a woman traveling alone, made the trip without incident – and on my first time here, mind you – but my life is now richer for having come; for I also believe that once you take a trip, it’s yours forever.

Mosque in Deira, a neighborhood in Dubai (2004)

I’ve been very fortunate with the opportunity to travel to new places in the Middle East and Europe the last few years. I’ve been blessed with an extraverted personality, so that by nature I desire and relish and immerse myself into these places. I’ve been blessed, too, with an ability to make friends, wherever I go. 

And wherever I’ve gone, that place is mine for life.

Houston to Riyadh: Islamic and Ethnic Lessons

Mohammed  

Mohammed is one of the staff at SABIC Americas in Houston, and he was very helpful in securing my Saudi visa last May in anticipation of centers in Riyadh later that month. We had lunch together in Houston on May 19th 2005, after I finished my Shell program, and he was a pleasant, knowledgeable man.

I learned more about Islam from him:

• Prophets Muhammad, Moses and Jesus all descended from the last (grand) father. I forget which two were brothers, sons of Ismail – or which one was the cousin.

• Muhammad (PBUH) traveled to Jerusalem and ascended to Heaven, just as Hesham Hassaballa noted.

• Apparently Moses had already died by the time of Muhammad’s revelation, so Moses could not necessarily have advised Muhammad to push back on God regarding the number of prayers Muslims had to do each day.

Me, with Herdie, Laure and Rolf, King Abdulaziz Historic Centre, in Riyadh (2005)

Mumtaz 

Mumtaz was the SABIC staff, who picked me up from King Khaled Airport in Riyadh on May 20th and drove me to the Four Seasons Hotel. He’s Pakistani but looked very Saudi in his customary thobe and ghutra.

I told him about how some Aramco participants were convinced that I was a Hejazi Saudi.  Mumtaz could see what they saw, and he offered more information that I found very interesting:

• Apparently there were people, maybe an ethnic group, from the Central Asian part of Russia called the Boharis.

• The Boharis settled in the Hejaz region (Western Province of Saudi Arabia), and I have some of their features.

Mumtaz mentioned that it was very tough to get a job in Pakistan. It’s a little better in Saudi Arabia, though it’s still not all that easy. I gathered from what he was saying that it was due to his being a foreigner.

I’m slowly learning and appreciating the great ethnic diversity in Saudi Arabia. If I recall correctly, there are over 200 ethnicities within Aramco alone.  The greatest diversity apparently resides in the Western Province, where ethnic groups hail from Africa and Asia.

Riyadh

Riyadh, in the Central Province, is the most conservative, and I would guess the least diverse – or, perhaps as Mumtaz is facing, the least open to different ethnicities.

Riyadh looks to be a sprawling city, with only a couple of tall buildings – the Four Seasons Hotel being one of them, apparently owned by one of the Princes. There’s another hotel, no where near as tall as the Four Seasons, that has an interesting cone-like structure. It, too, is owned by a Prince.

Riyadh houses about 4.5 million people, and talk about sprawling:  it’s 100 x 75 square kilometers.