Top Secret Santa

The Christmas season has a kind of weird twist to it in the Kingdom. It's not that Christmas is outlawed or anything – some Muslims celebrate Christmas and it's not against the Islamic faith – it's just that it's heavily discouraged. At the University, it's more or less a hanging crime to mention Christmas around the wrong people.

In the University, we are almost encouraged to report each other for any misdemeanor or supposed slight. If someone hears you say something like 'Merry Christmas' or, God forbid, you should say it to the wrong person, you could be called into HR for a talking to.

For the past couple of weeks we have been conducting a Secret Santa project in… well, secret. Every week we give our victims Secret Santas two gifts, each signed with a "SS" instead of "Secret Santa" in case the note should fall into the wrong hands.

We fall silent when someone who has reported us before for 'intolerant behavior' (the irony is not lost on us) walks by.

I've been leaving my Secret Santa booby traps of food in front of her door so that when she opens it she inevitable steps on it. You have to make your own fun in the Kingdom.

For the final gift I have gotten her a ball pit. Like a child's ball pit a la Chucky Cheese. She is going to freak and this is the most exciting thing that I can look forward to around the Christmas season.  Going to Christmas parties are not any kind of fun without my family around.

Compounds

Here, most foreigners live on compounds. This is kind of a compromise between the Saudi government and businesses with foreign workers.

The compounds are like terrariums for people – extensive landscaping makes the places look positively green, there are swimming pools and rec centers – I went to one the other day with a racquetball court.

Most compounds don't allow Saudis on, period. They have had too much trouble with them because laws that don't apply to foreigners, apply to them.  We've had problems when our taxi drivers are Saudi and they can't drive onto the compound. More than once, we've had to walk.

On compounds, you aren't allowed to wear a hijab or an abaya. They tell you at the gate, when they take your passport, that you must take them off. Women can drive on compounds, and can be seen with men not related to them. All of my dance classes are on compounds, because otherwise the Religious Police would bust in and arrest us all.

It's a strange kind of separation. I met some women who have been living on a compound since they got here and they seemed really oblivious of the restrictions on women here. They never covered their hair, even when out – they hadn't been here long enough to have had a run in with the Religious Police – and they didn't see a problem with getting in random taxis at night. I told them as many horror stories – things that have happened to me or people I live with - as I could to try to get them to take a little more care with their personal safety.

It's like they live in a whole other world.

At some point, it occurred to me that if I was in a compound, I wouldn't have been going through most of the emotional turmoil I've been in, but then I wouldn't really be in the Kingdom.

Where Do You Belong?

                I have an answer. An Answer to the question you have all been wondering.  Are you a Magdan? Or a Savannite?

                These two accommodations seem to predict the kind of person you are going to be. Recently, we had a new teacher come to the Kingdom and she was trying to decide which accommodation to move into. We had to brainstorm many ways to try and decide this fateful question (sorting hat, tarot card reading). We finally decided on a couple simple multiple questions to ask her. Now you can see for yourself what kind of person you are:

1.) When you ask the doorman to bring the washing machine to your apartment so you can wash your clothes and he doesn't do it for five days, you:

    a) Freak out because there is only one washing machine. When you get it, keep it in your room and pretend you don't have it.

                b) Email the CEO, HR, and your mother all about it. Three times.

                c) Go downstairs and strangle him with his own mullet.

                d) Do your laundry by hand. Like a boss.

2.) When you see cockroaches in your building, you:

                a) Scream. Blame the Kingdom. Deny the existence of cockroaches in your own country.

                b) Email the CEO, HR, and your mother all about it. Three times.

                c) Get a cat.

                d) Kill it and move on with your day.

3.) You cooked too much food and you don't want to deal with leftovers. You:

                a) Throw it out

                b) Email the CEO, HR, and your mother all about it. Three times. Blame the Kingdom. Deny the existence of leftovers in your country.

                c) Call everyone in the building because you know they will descend upon you like locusts.

                d) Pack it up and leave it on someone's doorstep Ding-Dong-Ditch style.

4.) Someone leaves food on your doorstep Ding-Dong-Ditch style. You:

                a) Scream. Blame the Kingdom. Call in sick to work.

                b) Throw it out.

                c) Eat it. Obviously.

                d) Pay it forward Ding-Dong-Ditch style.

5.) When someone sends out an email about a religious event that you don't participate in (Christmas, Eid, etc.), you:

                a) Call a meeting and lecture everyone on religious tolerance.

                b) Track down the person in charge of entire email service and make their lives hell.

                c) Read it and forget about it.

                d) Sign up to participate.

6.) It's raining outside. You:

                a) Make sure all the windows are closed tightly.

                b) Call a meeting and make everyone come. Blame the Kingdom. This never would have happened back home.

                c) Do a rain dance. Obviously.

                d) Call everyone up to stand outside under the gazebo and sing Christmas carols with you until the post-rain sandstorm sweeps in, and then skitter back inside like over-excited kittens.

If you answered mostly C or D, congratulations! You should join us in Magda! If you answered mostly A or B… I'm sure you have many other amazing qualities…

In the end, the new teacher commandeered the bus that was supposed to take us somewhere to unload all of her stuff at Savanna. Instead of going somewhere we had planned on going, she made us wait around until she was done. We decided that Savanna was a good choice for her.

Social Experiment

 I am conducting a social experiment on the people of Istanbul.

This city is such a swirling mix of peoples and cultures, it's often difficult to pinpoint where someone is from. I have been addressed in the street by touts in the following languages: English (obvi), Turkish, French, Spanish, Italian (possibly because I have a sweater that says 'Italia' across the back), Greek, Arabic, Hindi (probably because of the nose ring), and Hebrew. There are probably more languages that I didn't recognize.

These next two weeks, while I'm on vacation, I'm going to fine tune what provokes these kinds of responses. Today, I'm going to try for Arabic. I'm thinking, lots of eye make-up, hijab and glittery jewlery.

What? That's weird you say? Well, how do you spend your vacations?