Excuse me! I'm a VIP and Need Service NOW!

During Ramadan night time shopping the other day I ran into this rather irritating phenomenon of Very Important People aka unbelievably impatient Saudi women. Unfortunately typical in Saudi-Arabia. I hate it when some people disrespect others especially based on nationality, imagining themselves superior and treating them in a very demeaning way.

These VIP's are women that can be found continuously shouting "excuse me" in high pitched demanding voices to waiters, shop assistants, cashiers, or whoever they want service from. Seems like they have not heard of such things as "patience" "courtesy" or "respect". These women behave like they are the only people in the world.

Everything has to happen NOW. Immediately. Pronto. YALLA!

Waiting in line is also an unknown concept to them. What line? There is other people here?

The poor victims are usually Filipinos, Indians or other Asian nationalities trying their best to please the demanding Saudi women.

These hopelessly impatient women might not know any other word of English but rest assured will master "excuse me" from early childhood by which they will call all "servants".
Usually the VIP women will be wearing niqab. That way she remains anonymous which enables her to act like a spoiled kid in public. No one will recognize her, after all.

Last night I was at the food court of the shopping mall, it was closing time around 2 am. Because of the gender segregation even the counters of the food stands are divided by screens. The place I wanted to order food from was packed with VIPs shouting in a chorus on the women's side.

The male side was empty so I decided to order from there. The friendly Filipino guy came and took my order, all the while the women continued their aimless racket. He was running around like crazy doing his best trying to get the important women served. I felt sorry for him, he was sweating but he still managed to keep calm and smiling.

Perhaps the women didn't realize that pizza doesn't actually cook any faster however many times they shout excuse me to the guy making it.

What just topped off my irritatation was when they all stuffed themselves next to me in the men's section trying to push themselves into the front as if I wasn't even standing there. The shouting continued and the Filipino worker ran faster.

Then a little girl VIP started shouting to the guy in a very disrespectful tone hurry, hurry! The mother was standing right next to her and didn't say a thing. So I told the girl, the poor guy is doing his best. It's not nice to shout at him because he can't make the food any faster. We must all wait in line.
Her reply: But I've been waiting at least FIVE minutes!

FYI Pizza nor any other type of food does not cook in less than five minutes, unless you want yours raw of course.

Thats all. Just had to let it out.

Fatwa Madness and Panda Supermarkets

In my previous post I talked about King Abdullah and how he is trying to move the Kingdom forward to this millenium. However some other Saudis seem to feel the opposite.

They want to regress.

Whenever something advanced happens in the Kingdom there will always be the people who want to drag things backward as much as possible by making people feel guilty and blaming them for "imitating the west" or being apostates. Many of the progressive issues that stir conflict involve women. Conservatives just cannot let go of their total domination over women. The excuses are always the same.

For example the female cashiers now working at Pandas and the commotion it has caused.

Some comments from public and clerics have included:

"this could lead to harassment because women will meet young men and that could harm both of them."

So lets see, so only when women are on the other side of the counter, they will get harrassed?
But if they are standing on the opposite side as customers, that wouldn't of course happen right?

The difference between normal interaction and gender mixing:

Also women and men don't really meet when the woman is the one buying and the man standing about half a meter away from her is checking her out while doing his job. That way it doesn't lead to any "harm". But if the woman is the cashier, then boy is that dangerous!

This is why supervisors are present to intervene IF someone started bothering the working woman.
I'm sure women would much rather choose the female cashier over the male one, why not give them that option?

Some Saudi cashiers will take the opportunity to check out women that are bending over to move their groceries to the conveyor belt.

"Abdullah Al-Amri expressed his dissatisfaction with the decision which he said is humiliating to Saudi women who might also end up working as maids and security guards."

Humiliating to Saudi women huh? How about the tens of millions of female cashiers of other nationalities around the world?
Being a cashier is a humiliating job? So how come Saudi men can do it?

According to this racist mentality shouldn't the job be open to Indians and Pakistanis only who are worthy of such "low" jobs. Not sure about maids but Saudi women do work as guards at hospitals and female only venues. They seem to be doing just fine.

"Sheikh Mohammad Al-Habdan, the CEO of Al-Osra religious channel, told a local online newspaper that this decision violates the law of the General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta, which states that women should not compete by going into men’s jobs."

I wonder if Al-Habdan is aware that in most of the world cashiers are actually perceived as womens jobs. It's more suitable for a woman because it doesn't include any heavy physical activity. It's certainly not a "manly" job.

"Giving her that opportunity prevents men from having these job opportunities"

So men are more entitled to having jobs than women? What if she has a family to support, if she's a widow or a divorcee and the ex is totally useless and does not provide for her?
Perhaps it's just better for the women to continue to beg outside the Panda because that is all she can do to get money for her children.

Women worked along with men at the times of the Prophet, have the scholars forgotten? Or are they just picking and choosing Hadith again. Prophet Muhammeds dear wife Khadija was actually his boss and employed many other men besides him.

And the worst case of them all Sheikh Al Ahmed has really exceeded himself this time. He actually issued a religious ruling aka fatwa (King Abdullah FORBADE issuing fatwas like this last week) to boycott Pandas. The Sheikh said it's ok for the Hai'a aka muttawa to issue a lawsuit against the chain. This guy really is so frustrating! Does he think he can just overrule the Kings orders?

Read more o the subject from Saudiwoman's blog: http://saudiwoman.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/shiekh-al-ahmed-issues-a-fatwa/#comment-5338

Well I'm definitely going to shop in Pandas from now on just to support the cause of females working their!

King Abdullah- the Emissary of Saudi women

King Abdullah was recently chosen as one of the world's top 10 most respected leaders by Newsweek. This might come as a surprise to some since his actions do not usually make big headlines internationally. Nevertheless in the past few years he has accomplished a lot for women in Saudi-Arabia and often works behind the scenes to push reform.

In the headlines this week, the King has just appointed the new minister of labor for Saudi-Arabia. The new minister, Adil Fakieh worked previously as the mayor of Jeddah.

Another topic recently in the headlines is the Saudi female cashiers now working at a large grocery chain called Panda. This is great advancement in Saudi terms. Prior to this female cashiers worked exclusively in women only environments hidden from public view.
There are now a few brave women starting work at a Panda in Jeddah. This of course created an uproar of protests from conservative Saudis and some scholars.

Interestingly the Panda chain is owned by Savola group and the new minister Adil Fakieh happens to be the Chairman.
http://www.savola.com/savolae/A_Word_from_the_Chairman.php

So is this all just coincidence? Most likely King Abdullah is supportive of employing Saudi women and advancing their position in society, hence the appointment of Fakieh. Surely the newly appointed minister will be in favor of employing more women in the Panda grocery stores and later other chains will hopefully follow their example. Panda and Savola group will be protected from the attacks of extremist clerics and sheikhs by Fakieh and he has back-up from the King himself.

The King is known to be in favor of reform, especially when it comes to women's issues in the country. Earlier this year a photo was released with Abdullah and the Crown Prince posing together with 40 women. This was another quiet statement from Abdullah in relation to relaxing the Kingdoms strict rule on gender mixing.

Last September, the King inaugurated the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST), a graduate-level mixed-gender school devoted to advanced scientific research. Shortly after the University was opened a high ranking cleric criticized KAUST deeming the gender mixing a great sin. This led to the cleric getting sacked by the King.

King Abdullah also appointed the first female minister, Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez as deputy minister of education early last year.
Perhaps he has realized that the saying "a nation is as strong or weak as its women" really does have truth to it.

The Saudi King is empowering the women of Saudi-Arabia slowly, but surely. He is enabling them to come out of the shadows to participate in taking the Kingdom to more modern times. Change does not happen swiftly in the Kingdom. Things take time to advance even a little bit. Although all these issues might seem trivial and insignificant, in the context of Saudi society they are enormous.

What is one small step for the rest of the world, is one giant leap for the Saudis.

Will King Abdullah be the monarch to lift the ban on women driving??

Ramadan in a Saudi hospital

The Holy month of Ramadan changes the daily rhythm drastically in Saudi hospitals. Basically the hospital becomes alive at night and quiets down for the day.
Read here how the Saudis usually visit the sick in hospitals. Needless to say the amount of visitors during Ramadan will at least double, especially during the last ten days. Visitors will come late and stay until early morning. They will bring along vast amounts of arabic foods to break the fast with like sambosa, all kinds of tiny pastries, cookies, dates, chocolates..

Large Saudi families come to the hospital to join in Iftar together with the sick family member.  It's not uncommon to find the family eating on the sheets on the floors! Saudis will generously give the nurses a taste of everything, sometimes offering huge trays full of different sweets or salty snacks.

Another peculiar thing that happens during Ramadan is handing out money to nurses. Patient or relatives might slip money into the nurses pocket or openly offer money anywhere from 10 to 1000 riyals at a time. The gesture usually makes nurses feel somewhat awkward and because of cultural differences might be misinterpreted to be some form of bribing. Nurses are naturally not supposed to accept the money very few will reject. The person offering the money will become very upset if the offer is rejected and they can become pushy and just stuff the pockets with the money! The reason behind this is Saudi families wanting to show their gratitude and appreciation to the nurse.

Only few patients will be observing the Ramadan fast, and they will also abstain from all medications including injections and intravenous drugs during daylight hours. That makes it a bit difficult to accommodate the medication regime to the fasting timetables. Basically it means that the medications normally given around 8-9 am will be given at fast breaking time around 6:30pm. The next dose will be at midnight and finally just before the morning prayer at 4 am.

For some patients it's fine to fast and it will not make their condition worse. Every once in a while there will be a patient who insists on fasting even if doing so will severely adversely affect their health. The patients don't want to miss out on the blessings of fasting. Some are diabetic which means their blood sugar levels will be uncontrolled and it might put the patient in risk of coma, or they will refuse insulin injections resulting in sky-high blood sugar levels. Patients with bowel problems might get complications like obstructed bowel, may even need surgery and then there is the odd patient who will even refuse to be operated on.

Toward the end of Ramadan the emergency room usually begins to fill with patients with bowel obstructions. Many are elderly patients needing full time hospital care. Patients suffering from gastrointestinal diseases and disorders, diabetes, metabolic disorders and other diet controlled conditions further crowd the ER beds making it the busiest time of the year in the hospital. Nurses and doctors are often exhausted from the workload this month brings along.

The Muslim nurses will often opt to work night shifts to make fasting easier or alternatively if they wish to work days they can work shorter hours. The total amount of working hours during this month for Muslim nurses and other muslim personnel is also cut down. Generally there will not be any operations other than the most urgent ones.

The patients' sitters will all usually be fasting and the hospital kitchen provides food for them and the fasting patients in the early morning hours. A three course 'breakfast meal' called sohoor will be distributed at 2 am well before the Fajr prayer.

 The iftar meal will be distributed to the rooms at 6 pm. Even though a patient is not fasting they will be up all night chatting with relatives, reading Quran or watching Arabic soap operas or the live televised show from the grand mosque in Mecca.

I personally enjoy working during Ramadan, patients and relatives are in good spirits and it's nice to spend some extra time with them in the rooms having some arabic coffee and sweets. Generally the atmosphere is more laid-back and patients are not complaining as much as usual :)

The Magic Month in the Kingdom

Ramadan is a very special month to Muslims all over the world. In case you are not sure what Ramadan means to Muslims and why Muslims fast check out this link.
The crecent moon has been sighted and the fasting has started this morning.

Ramadan in Saudi-Arabia is a very different experience from any other country, even other arab Muslim countries. Fasting is taken dead seriously and the whole nation accomodates to make fasting easier.Spirits are high, every Muslim supports one another. The whole country changes radically for a month. For some expats it seems to be a nightmarish experience. But again I think it all comes down to attitudes and what one makes of it. I personally think it's a privilage to be able to experience it.

For expats it might appear something like this:

During Ramadan Saudis turn entirely into nocturnal beings, the daily rhythym reverses itself. Shops will open only in the late afternoon or after sunset and close around 2 am. Riyadh is like a phantom city until sunset arrives.
After the last prayer of the day Ishaa, thousands and thousands of huge SUV's packed with the entire Saudi family start making their ways to their relatives houses or shoppingmalls. Slowly they begin crawling into the streets eventually stopping the traffic altogether.
When they finally reach the malls the women will go out looking for Ramadan sales. Everyone will be busy finding nice clothes to wear for Ramadan.
Tailors get packed with women and men having custom-made thobes and jallabiyas ready for Eid clebrations.
Restaurants and food courts fill with families and screaming children throughout the night. Everyone including the smallest children will be stuffing themselves before they begin fasting. Some indulge in KFC and McDonalds megameals followed by a box of Cinnabons until they cannot move anymore.
Special night prayers also known as Taraweeh prayers are called out from the thousands of mosques around the city. They can be heard as a discordant symphony throughout the night.
Dental offices will be busy until 3 am with fasting patients that cannot be treated during the daytime.
Finally the streets congest once again with families hurrying home before Fajr prayer, which at this time of year is around 4 am.
After that, nothing. Absolute silence on the streets of Riyadh until it all starts over again the following day.
At home some will stay up until the morning chatting and watching tv, finally falling asleep when the sun comes up.
This was a bit aggrevated version of Ramadan in the Kingdom but many although of course not all Saudis do unfortunately spend it like this.
Read here how Ramadan is ideally spent.

For an "outsider" the experience may seem somewhat absurd and incomprehensible. First timers are usually either extremely irritated or fascinated.
What irritates non-Muslims is of course that they cannot do anything during the days since everything is closed and when the stores do open they are fully packed. But this is also the time that consuming any kind of fluid or food in public during the daylight hours becomes a horrendous crime.
Non-Muslims drinking publicly might openly be shouted at and at least glared down by angry Muslims. Basically non-Muslims are forced to hide all evidence of consuming.
If the Muttawa spots someone publicly drinking they might be in big trouble for disgracing the Holy month and might even end up in jail.

I personally think this is quite ridiculous and blowing things out of proportion. I don't mind if someone eats spaghetti bolognese in front of me when I'm fasting! I can always go somewhere else, look away or just not care. After all fasting is about self discipline too. I don't see why some Muslims will get offended by this. It's not like the non-muslims are doing it on purpose to offend anyone although I'm not saying that might rarely occur.
Sure people should be sensitive but this kind of dramatising and exaggeration is in my view unnecessary. Why does respecting other cultures and religions only seem to work in one direction in Saudi-Arabia? Religious tolerance should work both ways.
For example in the hospital all the staff's water bottles have to be hidden out of public sight, they are stored behind closed doors or bathrooms where staff has to go to secretly have a sip. Fasting Saudi employees will generally have very flexible working hours, arriving late, leaving early and taking hour long breaks while non-Saudi Muslims will not have all these luxuries and they are expected to be just fine with it.

I bet when some of these same hypersensitive Saudis go abroad they will forget about tolerance of all other religions altogether..

Anyways Ramadan Mubarak everyone!

Security alert during Ramadan

I just learned that the US embassy and consulates around KSA have issued a high alert security warning. The Finnish embassy has not sent any info about this so I thought it's better to post this just in case to spread the word.
The following information was published for U.S citizens to practise caution during Ramadan. This of course applies to all westerners because to extremists western looking people are potential Americans in other words targets.
Although Ramadan is supposed to be the month of good deeds and actions for Muslims, sadly terrorists might think it is the perfect time commit these awful crimes "in the name of God"and double their rewards. Islam teaches that during the Holy month, all good deeds are doubly rewarded by God. Naturally these sick people would see killing Americans as a good deed.

The following statement was issued:
We have received credible information that an unidentified extremist
in Saudi Arabia may be planning to attack Westerners working and living in
al-Qasim, Saudi Arabia. The timing and method of potential attacks are
currently unknown. The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Consulate General Dhahran
and Consulate General Jeddah remind U.S. citizens to exercise prudence and
enhanced security awareness at all times.


Most personnel experience relatively few security concerns; however,
situations can change suddenly. Regardless of where you are, it is always
advisable to keep your security and situational awareness levels high.


Please follow these good security practices:
Do not be time and place predictable. Vary your routes and times to and from
work. Do not frequent the same shops with regularity;
Know where you are going and have a plan of what to do in the event you
encounter demonstrations or violence;
Identify safe areas (for example police stations, hospitals, Saudi
Government buildings) in your area and how to get to them quickly;
Avoid crowds or large gatherings when traveling in public;
Tell co-workers or neighbors where youre going and when you intend to
return;
Minimize your profile while in public;
Always carry a cell phone and make sure you have emergency numbers
pre-programmed into your phone.

I wish everyone a peaceful and happy Ramadan despite these evil peoples efforts to ruin it. Inshallah they will be stopped before any harm is done.

A Saudi experiencing Finland

I've been quite a lazy blogger recently due to the fact that I've been on holiday and haven't been online much. We've just returned to Riyadh after a relaxing summer vacation in Finland. My husband and I spent most of our time at my families summerhouse by the sea in Southern Finland. It's a wonderful and peaceful place to unwind surrounded by my family. This was his third visit to Finland.

I´ve been a bit surprised at how much my husband genuinely enjoys my home country. KSA and Finland are so different weather wise, when it comes to the food, the nature and of course culture and traditions. Despite all the differences my Saudi really loves Finland and that just makes me love him more.

What surprised me mostly is how well my husband has adapted to the Finnish custom of spending the summer at our summerplaces. Most people will move to their summer houses, villas, or cottages for the time of their summer vacation. Life at the summer place differs quite alot from city life but that is exactly why people go there.

Like most Finns, we don´t have running water at the summer house. This itself naturally creates some "problems" and inconviniences. We haven't connected the electricity to our sauna which is from the 19th century in order to keep it as original as possible. The idea is to leave the luxuries of the city behind and to . In short Finns like to keep it nice and simple and feel close to nature. Kind of like bedouins actually!

I asked my husband what are his favorite things about Finland. He replied the presence of water, the vast amount of it surrounding you wherever you go; in the rivers, the lakes (Finland has over 100,00 of them!)and the sea. One activity we enjoy is going out to the sea, either sailing or boating to surrounding islands. He also likes the lush green nature, that is so versatile and very easily accessible. 

He loves being able to get so many things to eat by just stepping outside like blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, peas, salad, potatoes, mushrooms, spring onions, rhubarb, black and red currants, apples, tomatoes..the list is endless and the majority can be found a few steps from the house.

Despite hating the summer heat in Saudi, my husband loves going to sauna. He knows how to chop the trees so they are just right and how to heat the perfect old-fashioned wood sauna. He will actually stay in longer than me sometimes and be the one adding more 'löyly" (steam)! The only thing he won't likely do (without peer pressure) is go for a long swim in the +22C seawater, which for us is very warm but for him it's freezing!

Naturally my husband prefers the summer climate when the weather is not too hot or cold (if we are having a good summer!)This sumer was really hot and the record highest temperature ever of 37.6 celcius was set in eastern Finland.

He also likes that everything is so well organised and easily available, that technology is very advanced and at hand everywhere.

One of the only things my husband doesn't like about Finland (except the cold water) is when we go out people stare at him like he's an alien. Especially when accompanied by Finnish women Arab and dark skinned men will get some long glares. Outside the capital Helsinki it's not common to see many foreigners around and some Finns are unfortunately quite wary when it comes to dark skinned people. I've noted that the worst gawkers seem to be the Finnish men. I wouldn´t say they're racist, but at least very suspicious and possibly a bit jealous that the Finnish woman has chosen a foreign spouse?

Speaking of which, we were going through some old stuff and stumbled upon this ABC from the 50's. On the first page there is a picture of an indian and a black woman washing herself. The text in the pictures says "A Red Indian sneaks searching for tracks" and "A Nigger washes her face but does not get white". Quite harsh to put in a children's book. Perhaps this attitude partially explains deeply rooted prejudices toward dark skinned people? For Finns it's unfortunately quite common to make fun of colored people. Only a few years back we used to have chocolate sweets named "Nigger's Kisses". On the wrapper there was a black skinned huge lippedcouple dressed in hula skirts kissing.Thank God they recently changed the name to Kisses but the picture remains ther same.

Actually racial caricatures of African black children were quite common topic in Finnish children's literature. A common joke almost a theme, in these stories was that these little kids were dirty because of the colour of their skin. In Helga Sjödtedt's story book "Afrikan veitikoita" (Little African Rascals) the author writes: "...and Grandma Jumbina was very pleased to see that little niggers' skin was turning to a more beautiful (lighter)color every day."
Check out more on the subject:

http://populaari.blogspot.com/2006/08/helga-sjstedt-afrikan-veitikoita-1946.html

In any case we had a fantastic time and can't wait to go back next year inshallah!