Unlocking The Beauty Secrets Of The Middle East: Alien Head Princesses

So something I have been struggling with here is how I look when I go out. Getting the proper abaya, putting on the headscarf correctly (or in a way where it won't fall off), what shoes to have on, which giant purse to take, how I will do make-up, what should happen with my hair, etc... I have never cared so much about how I look, really ever. One would think that throwing on a black robe and a scarf would make things so easy. You would never have to think again how you look to the outside world. So simple. Yeah right.

The ladies here all look like they put 19 hours into their appearance when they walk around the mall. Not all of them I guess, but a lot of them. I really want to know how they do it. I want to know how to fit in and not look like a ragamuffin. I want to know how to make that costume they all wear. I have been watching them and looking and thinking and figuring since the day I got here. Being a girl who when she was small got pissed at inaccuracies in other little girls poodle skirts and Laura Ingalls Wilder costumes, I want to do it right.

There is a certain type of young woman that Mike and I have deemed the Alien Head Princess. These girls are pale with thick black eyeliner and lashes, the abayas they have are glitzed out, they have gold and diamonds everywhere you can see, sometimes their headscarfs are all lace, but the identifying feature is the huge lump of hair they keep under the scarf. All the princess's hair is piled up and pinned to the top part of the back of her head, and with the scarf it looks like she has a giant alien head. I WANT TO KNOW HOW!!!

Tonight we went to the souk across the road from our apartment to wander around and avoid the standing water that is still in the streets. I made Mike stop at a shop that looked like a black market Claire's. I walked up and down the two aisles as he stood at the front of the store with Mariam. The walls were covered with crazy cheep jewelry, purses, sunglasses, make-up, and insane hair accessories that most seven year olds would be embarrassed to wear. I found some hints to this alien head look, so I purchased them all for about $3. Then we went by Abayat Corner, a little stand that sells abayas and accessories. There I found the secret to keeping all my hair up in a headscarf, a soft headband with a little extra brim type thing in front. Relief. None of the internet videos told me about this thing, they told me how to use 100 pins and how to fold a scarf so you can wear earrings, and how to do a formal look, and how to do this and that, but none told me how I could just throw on a little band and loosely wrap a scarf around. Finally.

So, I got home, put Mariam to bed, sent Mike down to the neighbor's, and got to work. With all my hairpins, my new doughnut bun shaper that looks like a dish scrubber you put your hair through, the lace headband thing I found at Abayat Corner, and my existing headscarf, I was ready to look like an Alien Head Princess (or at least the hair portion of her). LETS GO!


My arsenal


Huge hair


What I normally look like/Alien Princess Tontie!

Now, I will not really ever wear this look out. I have a long, far way to go. A lot of ladies here use skin lighteners that give them a grey blue pocky look, and then pile on the makeup. I need tons of powder, kohl eyeliner, fake lashes, loads of jewelry and a flashy new abaya before I can mimic a true Alien Head Princess. But it is fun to know and try. I am sure I will pull out my hair doughnut one day before we go to the mall, just to creep Mike out.

It rained here today.

Mariam and I awoke to a thunderstorm this morning! It was not raining, but thunder rumbled though breakfast. Then the rain hit, just a little at first. Just enough rain to make all the dust clump up causing everything to look dirtier. I have seen this happen once before here. It was not very refreshing.

Last time I was talking to my dad on the phone, and I had the big news, "IT SPRINKLED HERE!" he seemed surprised that this was such an odd event. Here are the numbers: December is second to January in precipitation in Jeddah. We get an average of 0.47 inches of rain here this month, January gets 0.55. Yearly we get 2.11 inches of water, you guys in Minnesota get almost 30. I live in the dessert, rain is rare. My dad asked how all the trees, plants and grass they keep get water. The solution, big trucks come around at night and spray all the medians filled with palm trees and blooming flowers every once in a while.

Anyway. The rain kept coming at a sprinkle to a slow pitter-patter. It continued for about an hour and a half. Mike texted me that the school was closing due to the rain and that he would be home early! I went out and took a few photos of our street. Jeddah doesn't bother to have storm sewers or gutters, everything just floods instead. The ground floor of our building is the parking lot, I see a lot of apartments set up like this and the rain must be why.

Last year it rained here for six hours straight. The water filled everything up and people probably thought the world was ending. A lot of the first graders Mike teaches are afraid of rain now because of last year. One little boy was asking, "Teacher, HOW!? HOW IS THE SUN NOT OUT! HOW IS THE SUN DOWN! WHY!!!?? WHY MUST IT RAIN!" Parents showed up early in a panic to get their children and kids were screaming to call their drivers to come get them. It was like a snowstorm in Texas or something.

Shortly after he texted me about the school closing, the rain stopped. The sun came out, and Jeddah returned to normal. 91 degrees and sunny in December.

26 strange things.

Here is a list of some different things about living in Jeddah

1. On is down, off is up. The light switches are backward like that.

2. There are two kinds of electrical outlets. One is for things that run using 125 V the other is for 240 V. Don't get them confused, things may explode.

3. There is no city water or sewer line. Each building has it's own septic tanks and water tanks. Make sure you get a good landlord who monitors these, ours has proven to be great so far.

4. People sleep during the day. If you are not working from about 1 pm to 5 pm, you are sleeping. Then you stay up and go out till very late at night. Playgrounds are vacant durring the day and hopping with kids past sunset. I really need to stop asking the question, "is it going to be open this late?" Ikea is open till 1 on weekends.

Mariam and Michael at a desserted daytime playground.

5. Weekends are Thursday and Friday instead of Saturday and Sunday. Friday is the holy day here, just like Sunday is at home.

6. Prayer calls happen five times a day, starting at about 5:30 am. There are mosques all over and they broadcast the call to prayer on speakers, we can hear about three different ones. It is spooky singing, some may think it is beautiful. If you are out shopping at one of these times, you can keep shopping, but you can't check out. That gives the employees the option to pray if they want.

7. Guys hold hands and kiss-kiss all over this place. It is not gay, but it sure catches me off guard.

8. Most middle class people have maids.

9. Our car gets washed every day by the doorman of our apartment. It would be awfully dusty otherwise.

10. Families and single men have separate sections at most restaurants. It is not as strange as it sounds, the family sections are often times nicer with private booths and hi-chairs for Mariam.

MareBear chillin in the family section at Jamaican Grill

11. Women wear abayas. But not all of them are black, not all women cover there heads, and you rarely see a woman in a full on burka in this city. Women also work at grocery stores and malls here, contrary to popular belief.

12. Lots of men wear long white shirts that go down to there ankels. These are called Thobes. You also see guys rockin' sarongs every once in a while. All the 12 to 20 something boys dress like total hipsters, not kidding.

13. Public art is everywhere.


14. Driving can be scary. Where there are three lanes painted there are typically five lanes of cars. No one looks when turning right, and you have to bully your way through roundabouts.

15. I also need to stop asking the question, "is this a parking space?" Everywhere is a parking space. You can even park people in when you run in to grab food or whatever at the corner stores. The etiquette is that if you are blocked by another person and need to leave, you just stand by your car and lay on the horn. The other driver comes out and scoots the car down a few spots. It happened to us last night.

16. The people here love american food. They have tons of restaurants from the US, fastfood and sit down. Burger King costs about the same here, around $6 for a meal, and Mcdonalds has a 5 riyal ($1.25) menu. You can also find whatever you need at the grocery stores. There are rapidly growing diabetes and obesity problems here as well.

17. You can get ridiculously good local food for super cheep. Foot long tuna, egg, tomato, and cheese sandwich for about $1.25. Yummy shwarma sandwiches for about 50¢.

18. There is a store called Hyper Panda. Like Super Target. There are also just plain Panda stores.

hyper panda sign

19. There are like 1,000 different malls. Some are luxury, some are rundown wastes of time. Lots have ice skating rinks.

20. Lots of parts of this city remind me of Las Vegas, with out all the naked girls, drunkenness and gambling.

21. The people here are really nice. We actually know our neighbors and help each other out all the time. In 4 out of 5 apartments I have lived in in Minnesota I have never befriended a neighbor, you usually just turned the other way or did a quick hello. When I got here neighbors stocked our kitchen with bowls, plates, cups and filled our fridge with lasagna, rice pudding, juice and deserts.

22. Kids rule this town. Everywhere you go you see hundreds of kids. You also see tons of toy stores and stands selling junk toys at parks and on the side of the road. Amusement parks are taking over the city and highways. Guys sell cotton candy in trafic, yesterday I saw one car buy six bags. Every store has it's own play area. All these kids are also allowed to do whatever they want. I have seen kids gorging themselves at the grocery store and rollerblading or riding scooters through stores. The best are when they are driving their Powerwheel convertibles or SUVs and tip over displays. These things are not dangerous, someone will pick it up...

junk toy stand.

23. The S is burnt out on the Saudi German Hospital sign. At night it reads Audi German Hospital. I think this is really funny.

24. 107.1 FM is NPR here. We can listen to This American Life, Prairie Home Companion, and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me as we drive down the seaside. 93.7 also plays American rock music not unlike 93X.

25. Cats are like squirrels here.

meow meow.

26. Everything has a musk scented option. Jergens body lotion, laundry detergent, you name it... these folks are into smelling like musk.

Average day

Mariam and I have been here for twelve days now. We are starting to get into a pattern of normalcy. Here is how it goes:

4 AM: Mariam wakes us up. She is still not quite used to this time change, but this gets better each day. We play and read books till it is time for Michael to get up for work.

6 AM: Breakfast of bananas, cereal and peach nectar eaten on our rooftop patio. We watch the sun rise. Mariam and I try to make friends with the doves that live on the roof by talking to them and leaving them bits of food. It's not really working, but we will keep trying. Mike goes to work.

7 AM: More playing and books. These things never get old with this little girl.

9 AM: I clean off the white tile floor of our patio with buckets of water and a squeegee. It gets dusty here quickly with all this sand! I open the window and let Mariam play in the living room as I do this. She usually stands in the window like a fastfood worker and throws blocks and things I left on the floor inside out at me. She gets mad she can't come out, but she will slip and fall with all the wet tiles.

10:30 AM: Mariam goes for a long nap. I think she takes this as her night time sleep still. I use this time to pick things up and clean or put together Ikea furniture. I am still getting used to all the quirks of the apartments here. The toilet flushes by pulling up a knob on the top of it. Saudi Arabian's don't seem to do the whole shower curtain thing, the middle of the bathroom floor has a drain instead. (this makes me dizzy when standing in the bathtub for some reason) The kitchen also has a drain in the floor, this makes it easy to clean as well. The water is delivered each day to the apartment building in big trucks because there is no city water line. They hook the truck up to the building and fill up water tanks. Water is included in our rent, but we buy drinking water. No one seems to conserve water here either, it feels strange, but we have never run out.

12 PM: I fall asleep. This is totally normal here. Stores and things are not even open at this time because most people are at home, sleeping away the hot part of the day.

3 PM: Mike gets home from teaching first grade. He falls asleep.

4 PM: I get up and look at the internet.

6 PM: Mariam and Mike wake up.

7 PM: I make dinner. Tonight I made pepper chicken with green peppers and onions and fava beans with tomatoes. We ate this with flat bread and my new favorite food Labnah We usually have lots of water and either guava or mango juice to drink too. Typically we eat out on the patio on a blanket. They eat on the floor here a lot, and even sell special plastic cloths to put down that you can just toss out when you are done eating. They throw out everything here, and everything comes in it's own plastic bag.

8:30 PM: We go out. Stores are all open till at least 11, and most till midnight. They have a store for everything it seems. The main roads are lined with an unbelievable amount of upscale malls, colored lights, fountains, and sculptures. In a way it reminds me of Las Vegas, without the naked ladies and gambling. My first night driving by all this I thought there were about 100 chandelier shops, and then I looked closer to realize that a lot the stores just have huge chandeliers all over. I only saw like two real chandelier stores. The side streets are filled with tiny shops and hole in the wall restaurants that all look tasty. We live right by a more traditional Souk. That is an open air mall with specialty shops and vendors on the sidewalks with a little area in the middle that has carnival rides and picnic tables.
Tonight we went to a very nice pet shop called Pet Oasis in a huge strip mall. I wanted to see if they sold monkeys. They do, three kinds. They also had something that looked like a meerkat, cats, dogs, fish, bunnies, lizards, snakes, and a huge selection of exotic birds. Mariam enjoyed it. After that we walked down the mall and peeked into a huge lounge/night club where you drink fake cocktails (no alcohol here) and smoke out of a hookah. We explored yet another grocery store, and got some milk for Mare. On the way home we stopped at a little restaurant and Mike bought us some fruity nutty dessert drink I forgot the name of. I should have taken a photo, it looked very decadent.

Mariam with the ferrets at Pet Oasis

11 PM: Mike reads books to Mariam and goes to bed.

12PM: Mare falls asleep. I do internet stuff and eventually fall asleep too.

getting here.

Mariam and I have now been in Jeddah for almost seven days. We are still working towards getting her to sleep at night. Having a spunky one year old on a nine hour time difference is more exhausting than having a newborn at home. But it still follows the same rules, she passes out, I pass out. So it is 3:32 AM here, and I am trying to keep her quiet and busy so Mike can go deal with a classroom of first graders in three hours. Mare and I will (not try to) sleep this afternoon.

The first day here we slept. We had just gotten off of 24 hours of travel. My dad drove us to the airport at 5 AM last Tuesday. Mariam and I got on a flight to JFK, and she slept the whole plane ride. Next we picked up our bags and headed into terminal 1 for a ten hour lay over. The check in counter for Saudi Airlines was not even set up yet. I guess this was the shortest layover we could have gotten though, unless we wanted to do more than one transfer. Mariam and I sat on benches, played on the floor, ate sandwiches, made very daring trips to the bathroom with all of our luggage. It went as well as it could.

I could check my bags and go through security four hours before the plane started boarding. Six hours went past and we checked in and headed through security. If you think airport security is all scary and terrible now you should stop watching TV and quit reading dumb internet articles. I had no body scan or pat down in my two times though. In fact I did not even see one body scan or pat down. Just your typical shoes off, stuff in the bin, go through the metal detector. Anyway. If you fly anytime soon, all that junk you hear about will most likely not happen to you at all. I think Scott Bibus had a body scan last time he flew, but wouldn't you be curious too?

We got to our gate and Mariam made quick friends with a girl from Germany named Annabelle and a Russian baby about her age named Ayesha. Mariam and Ayesha toddled around the gate and played together till the flight to Moscow left. We had some tuna and milk for dinner and Mariam fell asleep just as we started boarding our giant airplane to Saudi Arabia.

The plane was very nice. Each seat had it's own TV and they gave Mariam a little bassinet to sleep in. They also gave her a soft backpack that folded out into a blanket. It had a stuffed version of the airplane with big eyes instead of windshields, diapers, a nuk, a bottle, baby wipes, baby lotion, baby cream, baby soap, baby powder, two baby foods, baby apple juice, and a baby teething biscuit in it. They gave me two pillows, two blankets, socks, a sleep mask, a toothbrush and toothpaste, headphones, a refreshing towelette, two really good airplane meals, a snack, and at the very end a little green candy. I watched "Where the Wild Things Are" and "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" in between meals and compulsively checked the feature that told me the time left in transit and the exact place we were over. Mariam slept and I waited forever for the sun to start peeking though the windows. It finally came through, and I realized we still had hours to go. I am not good at sleeping on airplanes, even with pillows and fancy things.

We flew over Spain and Italy and Greece. We flew over The Nile. I got up and put my Abaya on in the bathroom and we finally got to Jeddah. Mariam and I got off the plane and on to a little bus that took us to the building. It was hot and the sun was setting already. The airport was pretty typical, besides the fact that all the women had on black Abayas and the men had on giant white shirtdress things. I filled out a little card for myself and Mare and we headed through customs and out sliding doors to a large crowd of people. Mike hopped the railing holding them back and hugged us. Mariam started to cry, I started to cry, a man brought our bags out, and we got into our car.

Mariam is looking sleepy now. I am going to take advantage of this calm and post more later. Goodnight!

::tontie::