10. "Mafi Moshcula."

Being an immigrant myself, and having worked in two foreign countries and traveled to some supposedly exotic locales, I thought that I would be immune to cultural shocks. Back in the office in New York after the encounter at the consulate, Srini waved his fist in frustration, "If I see one of these Saudis on the street, I’m going to punch him in the face." I have to admit that I shared the sentiment. This was when I realized that I had a problem.

The first step towards recovery is to admit that you have a problem. While in New York, I picked up a book by Gina Crocetti titled Cultural Shock! UAE. Although the book is written for United Arab Emirates, what it says about Arab culture is directly applicable to Saudi Arabia. The book read a little like a rule book about customs of the Dead Poets Society and served as a self-help book for me. The author had traveled to a great number of places, yet still suffered cultural shocks working as a lecturer in UAE. She laid out the three stages of cultural shock.

The first stage of cultural shock is the initial excitement and euphoria about the new culture. The more things appear to be different and strange, the more they seem to be interesting and mysterious. To quote Srini, "I must touch the sand," symbolizes Stage I. Come to think of it, I never stayed for any prolonged period of time at most of the "exotic" places I had visited. I was fine because I never had the time to progress past Stage I.

In a country that is as isolating and unwelcoming as Saudi Arabia, one soon slides into the second stage. This stage is one of deep frustration, and perhaps anger and depression. To quote Ricardo, "Stop wearing skirts, dude," symbolizes Stage II. Many who couldn’t get over this stage get on an airplane. As our team staffed up and new people came in, the symptoms of Stages I and II were so clearly observable. I had joked about people being in Stage I and Stage II so much that they had become part of the team vocabulary. It’s usually not too hard to imagine what happened during the day if I hear that such-and-such "is in deep Stage II."

Those who eventually climb out of the depth of Stage II come to terms with the alien culture. The culture is neither good nor bad. It’s just different. Some simple understanding of these three stages of cultural shock somehow helped me cope with it. By the time I left New York, I could feel that I was out of the depth of Stage II.

Aside from the SIMAC encounter my break in New York was pleasant enough. No, no wild parties or drinking. Did some errands on Friday (April 9). Planted three shrubs and a rose in the front yard on Saturday. Dim sum in Chinatown and the Matrix and dinner at Union Square with the usual suspects on Sunday. I was in New York for three more days than I wanted to, but I had gotten my multiple entry visa.

Back in Riyadh life has settled into a routine. It’s a different routine, but a routine nevertheless. Interviewing the client, gathering information, and attending meetings account for a large portion of my daily work. Depending on the day’s schedule, I may have to set out as early as 7:30, but if there are no meetings, I may sleep in a little. There are days where I have to run from one meeting to the next practically the whole day, but those are rare. Most of the time, it is more like one or two meetings, some phone calls, and interviews. Then the days end mercifully at around 3:00 or 4:00.

Back in the compound I’d go swimming around 5:30 or so just after the sun has set but before it’s dark. I used to go to the VIP pool behind our office villa in VIP 16, but I moved to villa 312 at the other end of the compound just before I left for New York. Now I tended to go to the compound main pool which is nearer 312 and larger, but often it’s a bit crowded with kids diving from the jump board. Carlos and Srini began taking tennis lessons; Ricardo and I go swimming fairly regularly; I teach Srini swimming when he’s in the mood; Chris lifts weights and gets Ricardo to go. I upgraded Ricardo from "seriously nuts" when he was jogging and swimming back to back, to "seriously seriously nuts" when he started adding weight lifting too. To his credit though, he did lose quite a few pounds.

The nights are usually spent in the office villa working on deck pages. When important meetings approach, we tend to stay a little late churning out reports. When some crisis looms on the horizon, more of us tend to work longer hours. On most of the days, we wrap things up around 10:00 or 11:00 if not earlier. Later on we added daily team meetings between 6:00 and 8:00 which upset the dinner and exercise schedule a little. Since this is my first real project, I have no way of gauging whether it’s more difficult or stressful or less compared to other projects. The cultural aspect of the project does present a different set of challenges, but things generally don’t happen too fast around here. We may have busy days and slow days, but I didn’t feel too much stress overall. If one can tolerate the lifestyle here and shrug off the cultural shock – "Mafi Mushcula", no problem – this is actually not all that bad a project to be on.

With no cinemas, no performing arts, no bars, no clubs, or any other sort of things you’d normally find yourself doing during the weekend, the choice of entertainment in Riyadh is rather limited. Entertainment means essentially two things - shopping and dining.

Merely going to the shopping malls was interesting initially, as the malls are where you’d find abayas. The weekend after I came back from New York, several of us went to a mall. Chris bought a full set of Saudi clothes. On the way out, we went to an ATM to get some cash. A little girl approached us and looked at me with curiosity. She extended her hand. I wasn’t too sure what I should do. It’s a Saudi female after all. Her parents were standing right there. Srini reminded me, "I think she wants to shake your hand." Alright, I’ll live dangerously for a moment here. The little girl shook my hand, let out a happy scream "Salam", and ran to her parents. You know, in a couple of years, she’d know better to avoid strange men like plague.

Another time, Gafoor took us to a mall on a Thursday. Some guy stood at the door and wouldn’t let us in because we were all men. Thursday nights at some malls are family night, when some of the women shoppers could take down their veils. Single men are not allowed in. We went to a different place, and Gafoor talked the guard there into letting us in. Apparently, some of the Saudi teenagers would come on Thursday night to look at the women too. Aside the from the cheap thrills like these, the malls are fairly boring places after only a few visits. Things there I generally don’t want, and things I want I generally can’t find.

The restaurant in the compound changed management towards the end of the March. The food and the services had, in my opinion, went from bad to worse. During the day, we might drop by Sheraton to have lunch, often times because that’s the only place open around prayer time between noon and 1:00. On weekends we tend to go out to eat. Srini is great at getting people to go and trying to find new places. I have become lazy and would order food from the compound restaurant by default, despite the poor quality. One thing that we could really get used to here is the fruit juices a lot of the restaurants offer. One place we went to a few time to get fruit juices and shawarma – beef or chicken carved from a spit and rolled in pita bread – is Mama Noura Juice Center near Sheraton. There are also several Turkish and Indian restaurants we often go to, but fine Western cuisine is generally harder to find.

Terrence
Riyadh
Friday, July 2, 1999