a love letter to minnesota

My Beloved Minnesota,

Oh! How I miss you. I have been living in a state of perpetual hot and dusty winter. It is forever March in this country, you know, the month when everyone is angry inside, depressed, thinking spring my never come to their home or their hearts. The time of year when people are unnecessarily rude to strangers, when your coworkers seem on edge because the winter has been so long and hard and it seems like it will never break. It is a hot and dusty March for the whole calendar in Saudi Arabia.

Sometimes, I bring the computer in the bedroom and put on frog and cricket noises. I turn off the air conditioner and let the hot, thick dessert meets sea air into the blackened room. It is so still, and the frogs and crickets make me believe I am in a tent after a long day of hiking. Other times I will go to the mall and get frozen yogurt with raspberries on top. I taste one and close my eyes, dreaming of the day summers ago when I went raspberry picking with my friends in Duluth. I didn't have time to can them all so I carried a huge bucket around with me up the north shore to a luxury cabin and spent the evening eating as many as I could as I sat on the lake with Scott, Kathleen and their friends. That night I slept alone on the beach of Superior, cradled in the tiny rocks as I watched a meteor shower. I try so hard to remember what it feels like to lay in a lush green lawn and read the newspaper. How the grass smells, and how if you stay long enough the moisture from the plants and dirt make your clothes damp. I swirl my hands in the full laundry tub and remember your lakes, rivers, and streams.

Your people are quiet and forgiving. They form lines at shops, drive in a courteous manner, and say hello as you walk past them on your sidewalks. They keep to themselves and treat each other fairly. Your people value education, new ideas, quality, cleanliness, and systems that work. Last summer when I came for a visit, I got to the airport terminal to board my Minnesota flight. I could feel you in the room, Minnesota. I could see you in the old man who read the paper and made snarky comments about republicans that sat by us in the airplane. He offered us half his pizza and half his kit kat. I had a cup of caribou coffee on my affordable and modest Minnesota flight. I can not wait to be on that same airplane, my head glued to the window looking for signs of Wisconsin big woods, muddy streams, and baseball fields in parks. When I see the Mall of America right before we land I will probably choke up a bit.

I can not wait to go to the State Fair and run my hands through the different breeds of corn in the agriculture building. I can't wait to smell that hot oil in the food building, and to drink honey lemonade in a grove of Christmas trees brought in from all around the state. I want so badly to get stuck in a crowd watching a cow give birth on Seniors and Kids day. My heart just aches when I think of how great it will be to watch live music with a 9 o'clock fair breeze blowing through my hair. This year I want to take Mariam on Ye Old Mill and make animal sounds from the bench behind her as we float and bump around in the dark.

I cut out a paper version of you, and taped it to the wall in my living room. The colored paper is already faded from the constant sun. Thirty days till I am in-route to you again, my beloved Minnesota. Even if just about everything goes wrong or nothing fun happens at all, as long as I am in you this summer, I will have the best time of my life.

beauty salon.

A few days ago I played a round of "How old are you, why do you have so many gray hairs, why don't you dye your hair?" with the mother of my tutoring students. The day after, she and her 29 year old niece cornered me. "If you want to dye your hair I know of a place you can go to get it done!" Turns out the niece was going there the very next day, and that meant I was going along too.  Now, I have been growing my natural hair out for a few years, and had decided against coloring it to see how gray a girl in her late 20s could get. But apparently it was aging me terribly. After some womanly pressure, I was signed up to go to a Jeddah salon.

At five o'clock on Wednesday we picked up Shoda (the niece) and Mike drove us to a big white building that has fancy color changing lights on it at night, Rima Salon.  We got dropped off at the door. It had a sign taped to it "ABSOLUTELY NO MEN ALLOWED". (what happens if a pipe bursts or a computer needs fixing? I have a feeling there isn't a listing for female ITs or plumbers in this country.) I knew I was in for a treat. We walked into a lobby that went up about three or four stories, with hundreds of little glass bubbles suspended from the ceiling. Three older women with various versions of blond highlights and skin tight shirts greeted us at the front desk, two were smoking cigarettes. Shoda signed us in and one of the women laughed when she was given my name, "Arab name!" (by the way Saudi Arabia, my last name is not Ibrahim, no matter how bad you want to spell it that way.)

Shoda started guiding me around the salon with six floors, mazes of frosted glass walls and small rooms, doing all of our business in Arabic. Shoda had big plans for me. First she found her preferred stylist. She told the lady that she wanted a dramatic change for me, black hair, "corrected" eyebrows. The stylist began touching my hair and telling Shoda "Haraam! Haraam!" basically saying it would be a sin to do that to my hair. I went the entirety of my teen years looking like a homeless clown, trying every hair color, so hearing that I might be getting a black dye job did not shake me up a bit. But, Shoda folded on the black and picked a dark brown from the samples instead. "I am going to make you look Arab" she said. I got visions of huge hair and tropical pink and blue eyeshadow. She assured me that she preferred the "natural" look, and that I would love it and be addicted to it like caffeine. 

The dye went in and she began to talk eyebrows. I guess my norwegian eyebrows had bothered her since the first time she saw me. I will admit, they are a bit lighter than my hair color somehow, and a little sparse. Truthfully I never knew what to do with them, so I left them alone in fear that if I tried anything they would end up drawn on like my grandma's.  Shoda reviled that her eyebrows were tattoos, but advised me against getting them tattooed because you can't change them ever again. I also learned that in Islam, you are not supposed to pull hair out of your face. That means no waxing or plucking on your head, so I started wondering what they were going to do to my eyebrows in this Muslim country. Shave them. They shave and bleach any hair on the face. Apparently it is fine to wax the entire rest of the body, and to tattoo on eyebrows, but no tweezers anywhere above the neck. I have no clue why.

It was time for my color to come out and for the haircut. I like having my hair done by people who don't speak my language, you are always in for a good surprise, and you don't have to chit chat. The lady working on me had orangey Farah Fawcett hair, and her assistant looked like Left Eye from TLC. I honestly felt pretty confident in them, and they did a great job on me. Left Eye did go a little long with the hairdryer though, I don't care to see smoke or steam or whatever was floating off my hair from the round brush. The style turned out cute, with more of the natural look that was promised. Also, as I was being cut, I was treated to the sounds of an Arab cat fight outside my room. Screams like you have never heard before, in a language that lends its self a little too well to sounding angry like you have never heard before, doors slamming, then the hairdryer came on. Sigh. The fight was coming from the bridal section.

Finally I was ushered into the eyebrow room. A few women waited on couches with bleach all over their faces. I was seated in the operating chair, and my eyebrow "problem" was discussed over me in Arabic. I closed my eyes as a little straight razor was waved above them. Scrape, scrape scrape. Done. Then I felt a little brush of cool thick liquid on my eyebrows. COLOR. Once she was done, I was tilted up to a mirror to approve the shape, well no going back now really. I was told the tint will only last about a week, as I waited the ten minutes in uncertainty. The girl bushed off all the dye and underneath were little dark eyebrows. Totally reasonable. Shoda was not happy, she wanted darker, more drama! The eyebrow girl disagreed and told Shoda that she was afraid I would yell at her, because the only other American she worked on had gotten very angry and yelled at her. I told the girl I was pleased, and Shoda asked what my husband would think. I said, "He will like these, no problem." Shoda seemed even less satisfied and whisked me away to a mirror that was not being used. She got out her makeup bag and started painting gel eyeliner on my still too light brows. "You need to buy this makeup, you will love this. You will become addicted!" She showed me my new brows and asked, "What will your husband say?!" "Uhh, nothing," I replied. Shoda loved them, and at last felt accomplished. 

unearthly

Michael came to pick us up. I got in the front seat and Shoda sat in back next to Mariam. The car was silent. I looked back at Mariam, she was squirming around in her car seat, covering her mouth and trying to look out the window between wiggles. After about three minutes of quiet, Mariam appropriately shouted "EYE-BOROWS!" I just about peed my abaya laughing.

Natural. When I got home. After some scrubbing.

personality flaws and cultural differences.

Most of you are probably aware that I suffer from a very thick form of shyness. Garrison Keillor would quaintly blame my Minnesotan upbringing and my Scandinavian relatives, and I wouldn't be quick to prove him otherwise. You could label it Social Anxiety. It has been diagnosed, medicated, counseled, and I have made large attempts to rewire it out of my brain.


I feel like in the past few years I have gotten to be ok and pretty functional with my everyday irrational feelings of self-consciousness, judgment, evaluation, and inferiority in social situations. I have taken, and done well in, several highly interactional jobs as a challenge to myself. Recruiting, training, placing, and managing 130 college kids to volunteer within a school, no problem. However, I have never in my life been up to calling to order a pizza or paying for a tank of gas inside the store, ever. (what if they laugh at my topping choice!?) Even small social interactions with people I know can be incredibly taxing for me.


In this country and culture I moved into, social anxiety is not a recognized or understood thing. People are loud, aggressive, and the passive question simply dose not exist in their language. It is not, "May I have a cup of coffee?" in this place it is, "Give me a cup of coffee!" and if you do not have one to give you are just expected to explain yourself frankly. Women approach me randomly in public outright asking for my phone number so I can come to their house and we can be friends. I tell them I do not have a phone. I curl up inside. I lie.


My husband has explained to many others before I meet them, "she is shy". I don't know if this really helps me or not. Here they take shyness as a positive virtue, a sign that this woman is modest and therefore probably loves god a lot. They would never think it to be a selfish and rude thing, but then again they have never experienced my "shy". A person with my "shy" would probably be committed to the back of their parents house in embarrassment from the family.


The woman downstairs was warned of my shyness, and treats it the nicest way she knows how. It is also my nightmare. She points things out directly, "You are not relaxing! Here are seven more pillows to put behind your back and you must put your feet up like this..." When a long time goes between visits she exclaims as I enter her home, "You have forgotten me?! You do not like me!? Why!?".  I like her fine, I am just afraid she will not like me.


This week I have started my new job working with two second graders after school each day. I go through lessons with them, make them think for themselves, and have them coloring some serious butterfly lifecycle diagrams. I go to their beautiful apartment and I bring my two daughters along to be watched by their mother and maid as I teach. I get paid quite a bit and they feed me all kinds of nice things when I am there. It is a wonderful job, but I want to find any excuse to quit going.


The problem is not my students. It is not the extra time it takes out of my day. It is the fact that I have to interact with a Saudi woman on a regular basis, and she is not only judging me, but also my children. She is a nice lady and wants me to like her very much. But that dose not stop the cultural differences, "Lindsay, do not hold your baby like that!" I guess for the first four or five months infants here are not allowed to be in an upright position. Nora loves being held sitting up in my lap, her favorite is being held vertically against my chest. But this prompts a stern look and a comment in this country, you know, because they better save Nora from developing good head control and muscle tone, it might be too stressful for her. 


Yesterday Nora was brought into my room crying. "You must take her to the hospital!" I try to assure the mother of four that Nora is simply overtired and needs to be placed in a dark, quiet room. "Oh Lindsay, Lindsay! No you must take her to the hospital as soon as we are done here. Something is wrong! You will not sleep tonight if you do not take her!" I should tell you that everyone here goes to the hospital for each cold or bump they get. The doctors give a note to give to the pharmacist for some Panadol (tylenol) and the patient is happy and cured! There was nothing wrong with Nora at all. The maid took her and put her in a dark room and all was saved. This did not stop me from my feelings, even though I was proven correct. My whole body shook in under-confidence and panic. I sent the kids to go work on their science project and I sat and drank some tea, hoping that no one would notice my unsteady hands and send me to the hospital.


I guess I am writing this to avoid letting myself quit. I am not looking for pity in this confession to you, I am simply trying to out the negative thoughts from my brain. Reinforce the point of not walking away from my fears. I have been strong before. Now, I should go work on my lesson for today. It is looking kind of cloudy out, and a bit windy, so I will honestly be hoping for rain. Then I do not have to go. Because if there is one thing that these people are more afraid of than holding your baby upright, it is the rain.

Sugar.

Saturday afternoon I mixed up a big jug of Tang for our fourth grade boys that take over the living room most days of the week. I also had a double batch of peanut butter cookies for them to try. Nice, right? Beside the fact that one requested I make sandwiches for them (not pb&j, but tuna or chicken would be fine) they all noted that I did not add any additional sugar to the Tang. I made strong Tang, so thick it looked like neon orange milk. I remember how I liked my powdered drinks in fourth grade, and I tried to make these boys realize how hip I am to the nine year old taste bud.  However, they were disappointed that there was not a sweet sludge of extra sugar granules at the end of each glass. I guess I just don't understand Arab taste, and I am not blind to health.

Tang made in Bahrain

In a discussion with Nora's Pediatrician about breastfeeding he advised that, "You should take your supplements, because they will not make you fat." and "To boost your milk supply you need to drink a lot of liquids, like juice. But do not add any sugar to your orange juice." At the time I tried to tell myself that people do not add sugar to orange juice, he must have meant that I look for juices with no sugar added, and not to drink Tang.  Later that week when I was visiting downstairs, the woman was getting fed up with me because I would not take any sugar in my tea. "You need sugar to make your milk, you need extra, extra sugar!" she said as she added spoon after spoon into my drink. I didn't say much, smiled and drank my Ceylon and mint syrup.

I observed more, and began to think that maybe these people would add sugar to their orange juice. Michael has come home telling me horrific stories of men adding 13 sugar cubes to small cups of tea. When he confronted the Phys. Ed. teacher at his school about his sugar use, he said, "Who tells you sugar is bad?! It can not make you fat! Who tells you this?"

I finally saw it the other night. We were taken out for dinner by a family who's boy Mike had taught. The mother sat across from me. She was a short, round woman with a bright face and a gaudy taste in jewelry. She ordered no food, but she did request a single glass of orange juice and a glass of ice. I watched all night as she opened sugar packets and dumped five or six over the ice. Then she would pour about an inch of juice over it, stir it with the end of her knife, and sip it like a cocktail. Repeat. The juice lasted the whole meal this way, and probably had twenty five to thirty sugar packets mixed in. At the end of the evening we ordered coffee. She ordered cappuccinos for me and herself, and mentioned to the waiter, "Extra sweet for the ladies, please!" Thank god it came unsweetened with an extra row of sugar packets on the side. I stopped watching her sugar, I didn't want to understand how much "extra sweet" was to her.

As for the boys, I refuse to add extra sugar to the Tang. It is the first ingredient, and I already added extra mix to the water. Also, I think it will be apples and bananas for snack the rest of the week. I can't wait to see what the reaction is when I start throwing veggies in there for them. "Teacher, what is this?"

Fulla loses her religion.

So, I am not going to lie. We did part of Christmas a little early. In the car on the way home from Toys R Us, early. Mariam has been talking a lot about dolls lately, so I thought I would gift her one that was a little more grown up than the babies she already has. I have been curious about these "Fulla" dolls since I got here. It is basically a Muslim Barbie, complete with headscarf and abaya.

We were at the store and Fulla was a little cheeper than Barbie and had dark hair, two things that really appeal, not to mention how novel the idea was to me. I picked out a basic model from the "Fruity Abaya" line. Lemon-Mint Fulla came all wrapped up in her black outdoor clothes. On the back of the box you could see the outfit she had on underneath, double the wardrobe!

I took the box out in the car to look at it on the way home. Of corse Mariam saw it right away from her newly forward facing car seat, "DOLL! DOLL! DOLL!" I tried to put Lemon-Mint back in the bag and tears and shouting erupted. We had a slow and stressful drive (as always here) ahead of us, so I gave in and took Fulla out of the box. I probably wanted to see her more than Mare did anyway. I handed the doll to Mariam I could hear velcro being ripped and then a frustrated, "OUT"! Lemon-Mint was given back to the front seat to have her Abaya removed. It came off relatively easy, but her headscarf seemed to be securely attached. On the back of the box Fulla had flowing hair and no scarf on with her casual shirt and stretch pants. I thought the headscarf would have an easy off, but like lots of kids toys, the box was a little deceptive. I made some joke to Michael about Fulla having to be inside with the door shut before the headscarf could come off, also he probably shouldn't see her sans abaya since she isn't related to him.

We got home and I did a full inspection of Lemon-Mint with Mariam watching intently over my shoulder. We took off all her clothes. Fulla has incredibly skinny arms and much smaller boobs than Barbie does. She also has built in underwear that goes down to her knees and a square neck undershirt that most women in America would wear as just a shirt. Her fashionable little headscarf was not coming off. I told Michael to get me the scissors. I could see it was attached by little black plastic loops implanted into her head. It was hard to tell if it was supposed to stay that way or if it was like the other 1,000 pieces of plastic and wire bands that I had to take off to get Fulla out of the box. I decided along with Mariam, "OFF". Oops, I totally killed Lemon-Mint's modesty, and she was a Christmas gift, what am I doing to this young skinny Muslim doll! It was not meant to come off. Her hair was just sort of long black and hacked, not at all like the styled photo, I guess you have to do that yourself.

Mariam loves it by the way, she has taken off the clothes about 90 times already.

I did some more finding out Fulla. I checked out her website to find gems like this:

Under the "Learning" link there is a section titled "Dressing Modest". There you can find recipes for a fairer face and one to take care of your rough and ugly feet, articles about what fabric patterns to choose to flatter your figure, what your wardrobe style says about your personality type and one called "Food Makes You Prettier, But?" It is like an issue of Cosmo aimed at six year olds, nothing about dressing modestly.

My favorite is the "Inspiring Words" section. It just says, "Better be a cub in the family of lions than be a king of the Ostriches." Really? Fulla is hating on Ostriches now?

I am sure there are stranger things written in the "Whispers" section. Thats where they give some girl advice. I am really too tired to read all that right now though, and kinda weirded out.

Merry early Christmas.

backwards month.

Mariam and I arrived back from our visit to the States (yes I can call it that now that I don't live there) on August 9th. It was a great flight considering how pregnant I was and that I had an almost 2 year old in tow. Anyway, we retuned to Saudi Arabia and found it in a very unfamiliar state to us, Ramadan.

To keep it simple Ramadan is THE Muslim holiday, it goes on for a whole month. You can do more research if you don't know much about it, or want to know the religious aspects of it. This is how it appears to me:

1) Muslims don't eat or drink during the day.
Exceptions are pretty broad for this, ranging from if you are traveling to if you just plain old don't feel well. This means no restaurants are open during the day! What a sad but healthy time for a pregnant lady. I can't get Burger King when I want it, and by the time it opens I have talked myself out of the craving and have eaten a bunch of veggies at home.

2) Extra prayers happen.
Muslims pray five times a day. In Saudi Arabia the mosques broadcast the prayers over speakers. We live right next to one, it can be loud. I am pretty used to it happening and sleep through the early prayer, but now there are extra prayers. At about 9PM they start the normal evening one. During Ramadan though, it goes on and on and on as they read parts of the Koran for about an hour. Now, in this last week of the holiday, they do extra prayers that start about 1AM and go for what seems like an hour. I am sure this is pleasant and a reflective time for Muslims, but this 1 in the morning thing has me crabby.

3) People here stay up ALL NIGHT.
That is why the 1AM thing is just fine with them. Since they are not eating or drinking during the day, lots of people have work off, so they sleep all day (cheaters). The Malls and everything are open till 3:30 in the morning for Ramadan. We will go out for shopping at about 9:30 (the Koran reading time) to catch slow traffic. We leave the shops at about 11:30PM, just as everyone starts to come! Little kids and old people filling up Ikea at midnight! It is an unbelievable thing to me. I have participated though, we had our 8 year old neighbor boy with us bowling and playing arcade games till 2AM, totally acceptable. Traffic is awful too, everyone is out and everyone is visiting Jeddah. I can't decide if it is a bad or good thing we came into this from 8 time zones over, Mariam is keeping up a little too well with this night/party life.

4) They buy a lot of things and eat a ton of sweets.
Stores are packed with sales and customers. Extra aisles are put up at the grocery store for baked goods and candy. Hey, sounds a lot like Christmas... only for a whole month!

5) Decorations get put up around shops and all over packaging.
I guess there is not an official theme, but most places have a little extra blue, white, silver and gold around. Moons and stars also show up everywhere as well as fancy lanterns. Places smell nicer too, lots of extra incense are burnt it seems like. I have seen some houses with white christmas lights up and some neighborhood streets with big strings of light bulbs zig zagging from building to building. Some small neighborhood restaurants also put a little red and blue patterned tent out front, so they can better serve people when eating time comes around.

An example of a Ramadan Pepsi can

6) As well as eating extra candy, they have huge dinners every night.
To break the day's fast at sunset Muslims typically eat dates and have a little drink of milk or water. Then comes the heaps of food. Michael, Mariam and I were invited to a real "Iftar" dinner here, hosted by one of Michael's friend's families. I will write a whole separate post about this experience to save this one from being unbearably long. It was a lot of food. I asked the one english speaking woman in the room if dinner was this big every night, and she laughingly replied, "yes"! They also eat a very large meal just before morning prayers and fasting starts again (or just before bed for a lot of folks).

7) Everyone seems extra nice after the sun goes down.
Full bellies and good times with family and friends lead to happy people. They shoot fireworks into the sea, fill up the amusement parks, malls, and playgrounds, and give extra money to poor people. It is better to not try and interact with the outside during the day. People are hurried and irritable from fasting, they can smell funny too. Also, a fasting driver at 6PM is just about as safe as a mildly drunk driver. We have just been staying in getting a lot of things done and wasting a lot of time on the internet. Michael starts work back up next week when this is all over.

Our neighbor kids put this Happy Ramadan sign up downstairs by the door. I thought it was cute so I got them some gummy bears.

8) To finish it all off they have like a bonus three day holiday.
Eid Al-Fitr. Here is an informative article (with recipes!) http://en.news.maktoob.com/20090000998672/Eid_Al-Fitr_Ramadan_s_sweet_ending/Article.htm

That is my experience with Ramadan so far. Totally not a technical, religious, or probably even entirely correct interpretation, but again my experience. It has been heartwarming and also aggravating at times, but over all very interesting to see a whole country take part in something like this holiday.

Do they know it's Easter? Or Christmas?! ummm... not really.

A friend of mine asked me to share my observations about the middle east perceptions of the coming Christian holiday. In Saudi Arabia, they don't really think about it. A large portion of the people probably don't even know about it, or know much about it.

Around the holidays Michael and I were discussing if our friend from Yemen was familiar with Christmas. My bet was that he had heard of it, and maybe saw Santa on TV or something. I knew he watched American movies and things, so I figured he had picked it up at some point. Michael thought that he probably knew nothing about it. I had trouble imagining that. We asked, and he had no clue what we were talking about. Why should he? This man grew up a Muslim in Yemen, and moved to Saudi Arabia a few years ago to find better work. If you look at the pure numbers in Jeddah, I am sure this is a version of the average citizen, legal or otherwise.

Then there are the people that are much better off than our Yemeni friend. This is the other half of the population here. They have TV and books and movies and American cars and clothes. Lots of them have been to America, or at least their dad has on business or something. The kids seem to be aware of the more commercial parts of other holidays. You can't watch many cartoons without a Halloween episode or a Santa sneaking in. But again, they just don't really care. I met a girl my age, an upper class girl who's father travels back and forth to America quite a bit. Her English was good, she had gone to University and studied English lit. We were talking and it was reviled that I was not a Muslim. I am pretty sure that she had never considered that I was not. What am I doing in Saudi Arabia as a non Muslim? Less than 5% of the population here is something other than Muslim! I think I was the first person she had met, who was not serving her dinner, that was non Muslim. We talked about it. She was really glad to be a Muslim, and had never even thought about exploring another religion. But man! She really wanted to go to America.

I was surprised to see hints of Easter popping up at the grocery store this month. You hear a lot of things about this country banning other holidays and practices. But I think in Jeddah, that idea is just a lot of talk to keep the older conservative people and the stricter parts of the country happy. You can find aisles of bunny, lamb, and chick stuffed animals with the toys. There are displays of Easter candy at the front of some stores, and you can buy little fake lilies. Again, you just can't escape the commercialism and western influences here. I can't get a ham, but I can load up on jellybeans and chocolate eggs. Happy Easter.

Coming from a place where the population is 75% Christian, especially if you practice it, I know it has to be hard to imagine a land without Christmas or Easter. But, how much do you really know about Ramadan off hand? It is the same, but backwards here. Growing up in a Muslim country you just really don't know a whole lot about Christian holidays, and you really don't mind. You can still get the candy.


As for the dyed baby chicks they give away as prizes at the arcade, they have been out of them the two times we took our neighbor boy to win one. He says they die quickly anyway (with one shot of the BB gun)!