Vignettes

FOOD — LIKE CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL

Ah, the joys of Ramadan.

This is a holy month here in Saudi Arabia — a time when one cuts out everything but the essential from life in order to focus on the Essential, if you get my drift.

How does this translate?

– Shortened business hours
– Dead streets during daylight hours
– Longer prayer times
– Iftars

This last point is probably my favorite part of Saudi Arabia thus far.

The iftar (“breakfast”) is, quite literally, the breaking of the fast. You get together with 20 of your closest friends, catch up over coffee and dried dates, and then sit down to a table piled high with mind-boggling amounts of food. There’s traditional dishes and old stand-bys, mezze and hommous, salads and rice and chicken, and even the occasional cheesecake.

This is not a time to be dieting. To the uninitiated: this is like Thanksgiving, but every single night. And let me tell you, having been to one of these, it’s amazing. The iftar may traditionally wrap up around 8 PM, but this is a country that likes to stay up late. As I mentioned previously, people will stay out until 3 or 4 AM, or even sunrise.

It’s a shame I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.

AND HERE I SIT, WATCHING TV

If there’s one thing I do here in Riyadh, it’s watch television. And no, not in the “couch potato” channel surfing, type of watch — but rather, I take whole seasons of a show and just binge-watch my way through. I try to take up other hobbies as well — for example, I’m trying to relearn the guitar — but the fact is there is always down time and not enough activity to fill it.

I’m currently working my way through the first season of AMC’s Mad Men — the sixties serial about a Madison Avenue advertising agency. It’s compelling and dreary at times — like American Beauty fifty years ago — but it’s the attention to detail that really sets it apart.

Whereas That 70s Show might throw in the occasional current events reference with a knowing wink and a nod, Mad Men’s writers are much more subtle. Flyaway commentary about JFK or The Bomb are just that — window dressing. It’s clear the intention is for the viewer to be looking through the window, so to speak, and not at the drapes.

It’s a story that probably wouldn’t work set in another time period, and yet it’s the sum of each stylish part working so harmoniously that makes it so good. If you haven’t seen this series, go out and pick it up from the beginning.

AND THEN WE ALL LAUGH TOGETHER

Another tradition, it seems, is the yearly Ramadan premiere of the Saudi comedy series Tash ma Tash (“no big deal”) — now in its 17th year. At times controversial, the rest of the time hilarious, this is a show that continues to push the envelope when it comes to satire and social commentary. It’s sharp and current and it throws the issues of the day into relief. It gets people talking publicly about things that might only be discussed privately. And the opening theme is catchy:

TASH (tash) TASH (tash) TASH ma taaaaaASH (repeat 800 times)

Sometimes the show strikes such a chord that local newspapers start covering the subject matter. From there, readers interact and spur the reaction further. It’s kind of amazing; when was the last time a television show drew this kind of attention in the United States?

I think maybe this is the ultimate punch line for the show’s writers — creating a fictional scenario so outlandish that the message manages to transcend reality itself.

I’m suddenly reminded of the season finale of LOST. Now, if only I could find it on DVD.

It’s Like the Beach with No Ocean

Greeting from from fabulous, endlessly sunny Riyadh! I arrived two weeks ago and am having an excellent time. Now, at long last, I can see what the training was for. The job is great, but honestly, it’s life here that’s the interesting part.

I arrived around late on a Monday night (which equals Wednesday in the Saudi week). En route to my new quarters, I had two staggeringly original thoughts:

• “Man, the desert is brown.”
• “There’s mosques all over the place.”

I had little time for deep introspection, though, as I was too terrified of death by traffic jam. People drive like maniacs; swerving across mulitple lanes, cutting each other off in crazed moments of road rage; merging into spaces I wouldn’t attempt in a go kart. And yet, that’s nothing compared to the terror of traffic in Cairo or Tehran. The mind boggles.

Also — and you may not know this — Riyadh is surprisingly developed, if a bit vertically-challenged. Probably due to the heat, most buildings aren’t most than three or four floors. Still, there’s two iconic skyscrapers: Kingdom Center (which has a giant intentional hole in the middle) and the triangular Al-Faisaliyah (which has a giant golden ball stuck on the top).

People love to stay up late here, mostly because it’s cooler at night. Traffic picks up in the afternoon and gets steadily worse as the night goes on. Around Ramadan, crowds are out until 3 or 4 in the morning. And there’s plenty to see, too: there’s so much neon and flashing lights that you’d think you were on the Strip in Vegas.

I can’t believe how quickly the time passes. Already two weeks have passed. People are always having each other over for movie nights and parties, there’s weekly soccer matches, trips out to nifty places — like the King Khaled Wildlife Preserve (which I’ll have to post some pictures of in a bit) or Madain Saleh (like Petra, but in north Saudi),  shopping like there’s no tomorrow (no sales tax in the Kingdom equals bargain bonanza), and the list just goes on and on. The close-knit nature of the diplomatic/expat community plus the problem of culture shock means that you need to find things to fill your time with and fast.

My only complaint thus far: the milk. Perhaps I’m too used to the ultra-pasteurization of the US milk, but here it spoils in like four days. This means I can only buy maybe a quart at a time. Note to self: find another calcium supplement.

Another Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Stupidity

After a month of general orientation, another two months on public affairs and cultural programs, eight whole months of Arabic, and a whole mess of consultations and pre-departure preparations, the end — or perhaps, the beginning — is finally at hand. In something like 36 hours, I’ll be heading out to the airport to catch my flight out to Riyadh.

It’s funny how many times I’ve sat down at the keyboard over the past two months with the intention of writing something profound and introspective — only to look at the words on the screen and realize what I’d written was obsequious, self-important drivel. Or, even worse, my writing was completely dull and generic — the kind of stuff fit for a teenager’s LiveJournal.

In other words, the kind of the stuff you’d usually read on here. But maybe I’m just more conscious of it these days.

But that’s what happens when you’re stuck in limbo for nearly a year. The classic rule of writing is to focus on what you know, but when all you know is the day-in, day-out slog of learning a language for six to eight hours a day, there’s only so many compelling pieces to create on the subject.

But that’s also life, isn’t it? Take any biopic in recent years and you’ll realize that those two hours make the lives of Ray Charles or Howard Hughes or whoever look like constant action and heart-rending tragedy. If “Walk The Line” had devoted an entire ten minutes to Johnny Cash clipping his toenails one morning, I doubt near as many people would have wanted to see it. Life is the stuff that happens in between the Kodak moments.

My apologies — this was supposed to be a stiff upper lip, “see you on the other side,” can’t wait for the new adventure, type of post. We’ll see what I can crank out once I get out and get settled.

Folk Music with Swords and Such

Oooo, what could this be? A visual aid? A metaphor for one's understanding of the world? Artsy and out of focus! That has to mean something!

Wow, a whole month of silence. I’m quite awful at this, aren’t I? Anyway, as promised, something new:

I’m a huge fan of folk music. It can be the Bob Dylan-Joan Baez- 60s resurgence-heavily poetic-style or the countrified-Avetts-possibly incorporating banjos and bluegrass-style. Both have their merits; one can be danced to, the other can make one appear deep and thoughtful and unique just like everyone else. However, neither have the most, well, active status in my future post. Jeddah may be many things, but a folk music center (in the Westernized sense described above, anyway) it is not. Hip hop is flourishing there, but that’s beside the point.

I was much too thick in the skull to use Google, it seems.

Given what I thought was the Kingdom’s stance with most of the presentational arts, I was honestly surprised to discover that a folk music tradition existed at all – much less a vibrant community of professional performers, many of whom have spent decades learning some of the more complicated and nuanced folk dances.

What is this “ardah” (Arabic for “performance” or “display)?  It blends poetry with singing, drumming, music, and dance movements — the ‘ardah is a symbol of traditional Saudi Arabian culture. While variations are also performed in other countries of the western Gulf region, the ‘ardah’s origins lay in the Arabian desert among the Bedouin.

In the old days before the unification of the kingdom, the ‘ardah used to be called al-faza‘, or ‘fright.’ Much like Mel Gibson’s big speech in Braveheart, this was a practice designed to get warriors pumped for battle — and before the days of the monarchy, there was plenty of it.

After Abdulaziz officially established Saudi proper, it became known as al-‘ardah al-najdiyyah, since it is well known in Najd, or central Saudi Arabia. If you saw the Frontline special on the House of Saud, you might remember seeing an old clip of al-faza; circular of men moving, dancing, and stomping in synchronization, their automatic weapons hoisted high.The ‘ardah is one of many Saudi folk-music traditions that referred to collectively as al-funun al-sha‘abiyyah, the folk arts, or more simply (and transliterated), al-fulklur, folklore.

One can catch a glimpse of the ‘ardah today on YouTube, at Middle Eastern cultural exhibitions, and in live television broadcasts of the folk-life festival at Janadriyah, held each year outside Riyadh. The festival opens with a rendition of an official ‘ardah, as well as a performance of other folk music and dance styles that are part of a multimedia stage show called the Operette. The only difference is the groups trade out the AK-47s for wooden poles or sometimes (and this is where it looks AWESOME) swords.

Why did I choose to break my e-silence on a topic that, quite frankly, most people reading this probably wouldn’t care about? Perhaps I’m just trying to find some sense of commonality between what I know and what I’m headed into — a culture so vastly different from anything I’ve ever experienced. And, in so doing, perhaps share some of the more interesting experiences and take the edge off the inevitable culture shock.

Or, it could be that the rerun of A Prairie Home Companion has been playing folk music all morning and I’m due to give a presentation on this subject on Tuesday.

Me Lob Yoy Long Tim

Wyman recently posted on the T9Word function of most texting programs on cellular phones and it got me thinking.

I’m a hopelessly-addicted iPhone user. The fact that it carries my calendar, my email, unlimited data, and works with many useful applications means that I’m rarely without it. In fact, as times I’ve probably been one of those “iClones” — people so absorbed with various tasks on the phone that they tend to run into people, miss steps on the stairway, fail to realize they’ve been fired, etc. I’ve never been more efficient at getting back to folks and keeping track of my schedule, but at what cost?

When Apple introduced the device nearly two years ago, the mobile market as we know it changed. Sure, we didn’t realize it at first; I mean, the initial iPhone cost over 400 dollars, right? But even then, what Steve Jobs showed the world that it was possible to combine most day-to-day online tasks with a phone and a semi-decent camera into one sleek, simple package. Such a shame that only the technophiles and the well-to-do could afford it.

Then Apple recycled the hardware and had AT&T subsidize the price through a two-year contract. Suddenly, only paying 200 dollars for a phone made it much more attractive to everyone — from diplomats to teenagers to Taliban leaders. And companies like RIM (maker of the BlackBerry) and Palm collectively wet themselves when they realized that Apple’s little miracle device was a real threat to their market share.

Before the iPhone, I could barely remember seeing even one or two commercials for a BlackBerry. It was something pushed toward the business folks who needed to be tied to their job 24/7. Sure, having email that close all the time could be convenient, but who really needed it?

Fast forward to the present and suddenly we’re seeing BlackBerry advertisements all the time — including the (well, to me, at least) semi-annoying ones from Verizon for the Storm voiced by The Office’s Jim Halpert.

But what’s the cost of convenience? We put our entire lives onto this lifeless device and then spend a significant portion of our day interacting with it. And when we can’t, we go into a strange sort of withdrawal.

Why, just this week, actually, I had iWithdrawal when I had to visit the hospital for a routine procedure. I can remember sitting in that room watching daytime television for over two hours, waiting for my turn in the OR, and all I could think was, “Man, I wish they’d let me have my phone right now.” At least I was thinking of keeping my family and loved ones up to date and not about what the latest scores were, but that’s when this post started mulling its way through my frontal lobe.

Before we even had cellular phones, what did we do in situations like the one mentioned above? We sat around, praying and freaking out, hoping that a phone call would eventually come from somewhere. But now, with everyone and their mother having ready mobile access, suddenly there’s not really an excuse. It puts a lot more pressure on people, this era of instant communication.

It’s also changed the way we get our news. Who was the first person to break the story about the airplane landing in the Hudson River? It wasn’t some crack reporter — it was a man with a mobile phone and a Twitter account watching the events from an office building, wasn’t it? Jurors with mobile phones are causing mistrials because they can’t keep their thumbs at bay while the prosecution is arguing. No wonder NDA clauses in employment contracts have beefed up so much — there’s now no time to control the dissemination of bad or good news.

So what am I arguing for? A return to simpler times? More self control? I’m not really quite sure. I’m too preoccupied trying to figure out why the auto-correct on my phone keeps replacing “I love you” with “I lob yoy.”

Minor Preparation

My apologies for scaling back on the posting lately. I’ll be honest here — between studying, daily life, and the amount of work that goes into writing here, I just haven’t been as motivated. 

Furthermore, there’s just not that much more I can go into about the ins-and-outs of life here at FSI that would be interesting enough to write about here. I expect that when I get out to Saudi, I’ll have a fresh batch of subjects and awesome pictures to work with, but until that time, I might be a little sparse around these parts. For those who’ve stuck around, thanks. 

Anyway:

اعمل في وزارة الخارجية و لكن في الحقيقة ادرس اللغة العربية في معهد السلك الدبلوماسي

This is the example sentence I usually rattle off whenever somebody wants me to speak some Arabic. It’s not perfect — and it’s probably incorrect — but it sounds authentic enough to prove that I’m learning something during the hours of training.

I do, however, get asked to what degree I’ve used Rosetta Stone in my daily studies. It makes sense, of course — the company always points out that it’s “THE language software used by the US Department of State!” I think it can be a useful tool, but I’ll let you in on a little secret:

If you use Rosetta Stone, and only Rosetta Stone, to learn a language, you’re going to end up very frustrated. The makers of the software looked at how people learn languages and applied those concepts to the interface to present situations in context to the user. That’s all well and good, but it’s very limited. You may learn how to say, “the green ball on the left is bigger than the red ball on the right,” but the program is not going to take you into more advanced conversational concepts that one needs to get by. Grammatically, I can see its use if the student needs to learn how a sentence breaks down and exactly where the parts of speech lie. Lord knows Arabic has enough of them to keep companies like Rosetta Stone plugging away for some time.

Plus, the user really doesn’t get the practice they need in conversing with a fluent speaker. On top of that, if you don’t read Arabic script — or Cyrillic, or Greek, or what have you — you’re bang out of luck, since that’s what is presented from the get-go. 

So, yeah, I do use Rosetta Stone occasionally during lab hours, but I wouldn’t depend on it solely to learn. Unless you’re some sort of linguistic savant, there’s no magical shortcut to picking up a language. It takes lots of work, headaches, and study. In fact, I’d say probably the best programs out there for learning quickly are the immersion programs, such as Middlebury’s in Vermont — or the various schools abroad. At FSI, they do alright with what they have (thanks to some very talented native-level teachers), but with some of these harder languages, you don’t really get that upper-level competence until you’re actually in country and fully immersed. 

Until then, it’s almost hilarious to hear the frustrated attempts to communicate with our instructors, who must have some sort of divine patience. For example, I tried to explain the economic stimulus bill one morning when the teacher asked, “شو اخبرك؟ (literally, what’s your news?)” I stuttered out something that I thought sounded pretty decent considering my limited vocabulary at that point. However, looking back, I had managed to boil Obama’s requests to Congress during a high level visit in which he was urging swift action on the behalf of American citizens as:

“The president of our United States who is named Obama will go to the House of the Senators and the Congress (I couldn’t remember the word for Representatives) today because he wants to spend a lot of money. They will talk about spending a lot of money and he wants the other side to work with him. They want to solve a big problem. The economy is bad. Yes.”

Actually, come to think of it, that’s probably how I would explain it anyway.

Overheard

In discussing immunizations for Saudi Arabia, I just had this gem of a conversation:

Her: Well, are the camels vaccinated?
Me: You’re not going to get bitten by a camel.
Her: But what if one sneezes on me?
Me: They don’t sneeze. They spit. And it’s not like you’re going to be around any camel farms.
Her: Says you.
Me: Why would you be going near a camel farm?
Her: To hang out with camels!
Me: What?
Her: Camels are my buddies!

Inauguration Watch

Like any other federal employee in the District today, I’m holed up in my apartment watching the insanity on television waiting for the scary out-of-towners to leave. I’m not going to try and live-blog the dang thing, but I hope to occasionally jump on and post an observation or two.

EDIT: And we have our first winner!

It’s certainly expected that people will try to sneak in to watch things firsthand, but you’d think they would keep a low profile, right? NOPE. Just saw two girls bragging on national television about how they skirted security because their friends had tickets and helped them get through.

Maybe the checkpoints are too overloaded to care, but still — why take that kind of chance?

EDIT 2: And the hits just keep on coming –

“I knew it was history bein’ in the making or whatever.”

Perhaps the cold is adversely affecting folks’ interview ability. On the flip side, it turns out security is giving away free boxed meals for breakfast and lunch. I wish I had some government muffins in my fridge.

EDIT 3 – I’m moving over to NPR because it sounds like they’re set up in front of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and I have yet to watch last week’s Friday Night Lights.

Also, somebody managed to get hit by a Metro train at Gallery Place/Chinatown. Given the crowds on the trains coming back from the airport last night, I’m not surprised.

EDIT 4 – Panther pride! Hope FNL goes back to being awesome this season.

News coverage is still hilarious. BBC set up shop in front of a Jamaican flag.

EDIT 5 – As of 9 AM, both the Capitol and Washington Monument were at capacity. That’s something like a mile full of bodies. Plus, the Metro has 1+ hour waiting time. I’m thinking I’ll try to take the trains next week. Maybe those 500,000 people all trying to get out at once will be gone by then.

My thermometer reads 23º F. Due to the sheer amount of body heat, I bet hypothermia cases will be lower than usual out there.

EDIT 6 – Just read a guy making a great case for why two million people have the day off. To sum it up: if you close ALL of 395 plus a few bridges, nobody’s going to get to the city, which means nobody is going to get any work done. 

On the other hand, seeing port-o-johns lined to the horizon on the Mall is awe-inspiring.

EDIT 7 – CNN was interviewing a kid about why he was out today, but unfortunately, their LIVE OBAMA CAM bug in the lower right basically blocked out the entire kid. Oops.

EDIT 8 – Just heard a lady on NPR say only the president can affirm instead of swear during the Oath of Office. Um, no? I remember getting that option when we swore in as FSOs.

EDIT 9 – I think I prefer C-SPAN’s coverage the best. No commentary about why they seated Samuel L. Jackson next to the Rev. Jesse Jackson. It’s refreshing.

EDIT 10 – Dick Cheney hurt himself moving boxes, hence the wheelchair. There goes my theory that he’s a robot in disguise.

EDIT 11 – Loving Aretha’s GIANT bow right now.

Flight Back

After such a pleasant weekend in Lexington, I’m on my way back into the storm. I’m currently sitting in the tarmac, waiting for the plane to pull into the gate.

I grabbed this shot as we were making our descent. It’s hard to think that it’s so frigid outside when the sky looks like that.

Tick Tock Tock

My apologies for the rambling post, but I’ve been sitting on this for awhile and I just needed to get it down. I promise to return you to something that makes a bit more sense next time around.

***

Walking around downtown DC yesterday, I noticed something interesting — well, in a city positively drenched in history, it’s hard not to notice something interesting, but bear with me here. Elizabeth — here for a New Year’s visit — and I were walking off a late lunch from Old Ebbitt Grill and I suggested going to take a look at the White House, given our proximity to it at the time. Unfortunately, I forgot that pretty much every view of the president’s residence was blocked by bleachers and inauguration construction.

However, despite the fact that there was no single place where one could get a decent picture, this particular bit of Pennsylvania Avenue was just as crowded as ever. And that was where it hit me — in just a little more than two weeks, things are going to change and nobody on the street at the time seemed to care. Regardless of who you are or your views — Democrat, Republican, Atheist, Vegan, etc. — come January 20, we’re looking at a potentially drastic step away from what we’ve come to know over the last eight years, maybe even the last few administrations.

The people there were just going about their business as usual while I stood there, momentarily dumbfounded. Tourists were still snapping photos of everything. One of Xenu’s followers was shouting epiphanies about Cthulu from the street corner. A street musician was playing a jazzy version of “You Are My Sunshine” on a slightly sharp-sounding saxophone (cold weather will do that to an instrument, you know).

My surprise was quickly tempered by the realization that DC has been adjusting since the election. We’ve been all “changed out” from the deluge of election coverage on the news, PR statements from the President Elect, the satirizing of anything and everything about the candidates, the various transition teams reorganizing everything from the feng shui of offices to the fake plants in the restrooms, and — let’s face it — there’s bigger fish to fry currently. With the world seemingly going to hell on a daily basis, a presidential inauguration is something that we can count on to run like clockwork.

Heck, a whole cottage industry of cheap souvenirs and discounted housing springs up every four years to deprive people’s wallets of their cash. I happen to know of one guy who’s renting out his front lawn in the suburbs for people to set up their tents. He’s charging extra for use of the facilities in his house, which seems like a silly idea. He may as well just put a sign out saying “dump raw sewage here.”

But there’s money to be made on the record crowds coming here. People from all walks of life — fawning groupies, political acolytes, raving supporters and detractors, and everyone else just looking to share in a historic moment — are going to flood the streets and fill the Metro and keep me from getting to Safeway to get my groceries.

But the clocks tick on, so there’s no point in sitting here, idly reflecting on reality. Like it or not, we’re going to be waking up to something new. So, we might as well get used to it. Once those bleachers come down, the White House is still going to be there. The teeming masses of people will go home and we’ll be left to face whatever comes next. And I will still need to do my Arabic homework — which, incidentally, I’ve neglected all weekend.