Not long ago, Shannon and I went to one of the many many many malls in Riyadh. Malls are a big deal there. People go to eat, relax, ride roller coasters, and socialize. (Yes they have roller coasters) One day recently, we went to the mall to handle one of the many hurdles that inevitably occur in setting up your life overseas, the cell phone struggle.
It happened in Ecuador. Our phones didn't work. The sim cards didn't fit. We could only get prepaid. Postpaid was our only option. Whatever the issue was, we ran into it while living in Ecuador. Why should Saudi be any different.
I detailed this in our first post after arriving, but the school was kind enough to give us phones to start with when we arrived. They were functional, charged, and loaded with some prepaid credit. It was enough to help us set up our bank accounts and our lives, albeit in a limited capacity. However, they were also OLD phones. They were the kind that you had to perform coded messages of Morse Code in order to type out a letter. Tap 9 six times and you have a letter. Now tab 4 three times. It was that sort of deal. So naturally, we had to get rid of those and upgrade our setups with the phones we already had.
So off we went to the mall. Now I've already detailed the prayer schedule in a previous post. While I respect the practice and tradition, as a selfish person trying to run errands, it can be a bit difficult to navigate. We arrived at the kiosk for our chosen cell phone providers at around 5:15. We left right after school let out. As soon as we walked up to the counter, we heard the call to prayer. The kiosk shut down and told us to return after about 35 minutes. We wandered the mall to kill time. Which is all we did because everything was closed.
At the end of the 35 minutes, we went back to the kiosk and worked with the cashier to set up our accounts. Switch the sim card, check. Set up our payment, check. Reboot the phones to test them out, not so successful. Oh man. No luck. So the troubleshooting started. And stopped. The next prayer call started and they left again. Rather than leave this time, we waited at the counter so we didn't lose our spot in line.
When they came back, we started again. My account had been activated but just wasn't working. First, the phone worked, but the internet and texting didn't. Then we messed with it some more and the internet worked but the phone and texting didn't. We switched sim cards, rebooted phones, called tech support, and no luck. Shannon's account was listed as PENDING and just flat out wouldn't work. We spent the next hour and change trying different solutions until, yup, another prayer call.
We waited again in line (approaching 3 hours at this point) as our patience seeped out of us like steam from a kettle. When he got back, we started again. Also full shout out to the phone kiosk guy. He could have easily been rude or dismissive of us, but he hung in there and tried his best to help us. Anyway, as we were in our third post prayer break, fixing the phone, or trying to, a uniformed man (of about 19 years old) walked up to the attendant and said some stuff in Arabic in a really animated and demonstrative way to him. Then he looked at me and did the same. Reminder, at this point we have been standing at this kiosk for three hours. My patience was gone and I had no idea what he was saying, but he was saying it in a rude way. I looked at him with the face of someone not ready to make friends and lacking the necessary scope of circumstance and patience required for navigating the situation. I replied with a curt "What!?!" in English and Shannon, with her calm demeanor in the face of any situation asked what the problem was. He was visibly uncomfortable and didn't look at her or direct her. He looked at me and said some more stuff I didn't understand. He spoke to the attendant some more and left.
As it turns out, he was upset by the fact that Shannon was leaning on the counter. Apparently, by her leaning on the counter, (after three plus hours of waiting) she was behaving inappropriately. He came to address it with me because it would not have been proper to address it with her. We didn't know the full scope of the situation until Shannon discussed the whole thing with a woman at school the next day who confirmed what had happened. It was a moment of crazy culture shock for us. We didn't mean to offend anyone, and had no idea that what we were doing could even be considered offensive in any way to anyone. But that goes to show that one can't assume the customs of another. Also, we left without our phones working.
Friday, November 17, 2017
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Bahrain: Shots Fired
Our first trip out of the Kingdom was a professional development conference on assessment that we were told, coerced, influenced to, asked to, decided to attend. It took place over a weekend, so we weren’t thrilled over the prospect, but it seemed like an interesting and valid opportunity to develop our trade. We got our re-entry visas, booked our hotel and flight, and got ready to roll. Shannon and I were both asked to attend so we got to share a room in a nice hotel.
We were whisked away immediately after school on Thursday into a bus. After hopping on our flight, and a quick one hour jaunt to Bahrain, we landed and checked into our hotel. The hotel was nice and had a nice view of the city. One thing I have to say about Middle Eastern cities that I have seen so far is that they get creative with their architecture. The view from the hotel provided ample opportunity to appreciate the creative shapes incorporated in the buildings.
After we checked in, we went down to a restaurant in the hotel. We met up with a lot of our colleagues where some folks decided to partake in the one thing most forbidden in the Kingdom; eat pork. Bahrain does not have many of the same practices that many consider restrictive due to cultural differences in habits. While we were there, we noticed that aside from our contingency of teachers, the rest of the guests at the hotel were one of two types. There were many Saudi men, in their traditional thobes and red checkered scarves, partaking in libations in an environment where it was allowed. The other type were bikers. There must have been some sort of biker events going on that weekend in Bahrain. I lived in Florida for a while, this looked like a small version of Bike Week in Daytona Beach, but the bikers were almost exclusively Arab men. It was an interesting experience, and a diverse set of customers for sure.
The first day of the conference flew by and that after, we hopped in the car of a coworker who had previously lived in Bahrain for 3 years. We listened as he drove around, pointed out significant landmarks, and pulled up to a shawarma place on the side of the road, where they brought us delicious spicy shawarma. To those not familiar, shawarma is a shaved meat burrito of sorts, with potato, sauce, and veggies rolled up inside of a tortilla like wrap. Eating regional food always reminds me of the interconnected nature of all people and cultures. In my experience, nearly every culture has some form of burrito/shawarma, empanada, zatar, pierogi, etc. People know what they like! Give me bread with cheese, potato, and meat stuffed inside. I want to be able to hold my meal in a portable vessel! Anyway, unrelated, and I digress.
That night, we went into the city center with a different group of teachers that we hadn’t known well before. In a school as large as ours, with everyone as busy as they are, and preordained cliques of teachers forming early with each wave of new teachers who come through year to year, we don’t get to know everyone very well. Since 32 of our teachers went to the conference, it was a good opportunity to have a bunch of us in one place. We got to know some teachers well over the trip.
The next day, we caught a ride with the same teacher instead of taking the hotel bus to the conference. We figured we’d get a few extra minutes at breakfast, and have the freedom of not being squished on a bus with 100 other teachers. Of course, we got caught up in Bahrain traffic and showed up to the conference fifteen minutes late. We pretended no one would notice and snuck in the back of the workshop room. When we pulled up, we saw another car of our teachers showing up. About 10 of us were late in total. We locked eyes with their car and everyone simultaneously knew that if we beat the other group, we wouldn’t be the MOST late to show up. We fast walked through the school campus and I opened the door, hoping to sneak into the back room of our workshop. It was inevitable that we would be noticed, but I tried to be as sneaky as possible, hoping that maybe I could get to a seat just in time for the decision makers at our school to notice the people sneaking in behind me. Well, out of the 30 people in the room, 20 or so were from our school, and 10 of us were late. We were noticed. I felt bad, and was embarrassed. I’ll be sure to remember that feeling the next time I have some students try to sneak into my class late. These things happen.
After the conference, we toured the city/island/country a bit more. We went to a local mall and wandered around, where we saw more “forbidden” things such as movie theaters, Christmas holiday displays, and even a “winterberry tree.” It was a cool cultural experience to see the city and check out more of the region.
We found our way to the airport, having foregone any semblance of weekend rest, grading, lesson planning, or leisure time. We piled on to our plane, with about 25 of our teachers. I quickly fell asleep due to exhaustion, in an effort to combat the inevitable exhaustion to come the next day. It was just a short flight back after all.
I woke up just in time to hear about a slight “delay in landing” of no more than five minutes. We landed and walked through a relatively empty airport. Not thinking about it, we gave our re-entry visas to the appropriate officials, and we were quickly waved through the customs inspection line.
When we got our bags and got outside where we were to wait for our bus, one of the teachers told us that the airport was under attack. Let me say that again. The airport. That we were standing in. Was under. Attack. This is a jarring thing to hear. This, of course prompted a universal checking of phones, and as phones were connecting to our local cell phone towers, we were all hearing a symphony of pings from our text messages.
Background context. This blog is not the place to outline the complexity that is the web of drama that is geopolitics in the Middle East. However, the necessary context for this scenario is that Saudi Arabia and the current group in governmental control of Yemen, are at war. The war has been going on for a while. Even this scenario is more complex than that, without figuring in the alleged role of Lebanon, Iran, and other parts of the region. So for the sake of this story, in response to the ongoing war, the government of Yemen fired missiles at the airport in Riyadh, where we were standing. The goal was to attack a civilian target as a part of the ongoing war. So we were in the middle of it. The aforementioned delay was due to the fact that the Saudi government was in the process of shooting down the missile, thus delaying our landing. Apparently, the missile was successfully shot down. Shrapnel from the mid-air explosion landed in the parking lot area of the airport. There is a lot more to the story than that, but for the sake of this blog, and of our experiences, that is all that needs to be said.
Sufficiently freaked out, we got on the (by this time, LOOOOOONG overdue bus) and went back to the compound. It was late, and we were tired, so despite the fact that you could technically argue that we had, moments before, been in the middle of an act of war, we showered and went to sleep for the next night. Needless to say, my Global Politics class was significantly more interesting the next day as school went on as usual. It was a crazy trip, and a story that will probably live long in the pantheon of our overseas adventures.
We were whisked away immediately after school on Thursday into a bus. After hopping on our flight, and a quick one hour jaunt to Bahrain, we landed and checked into our hotel. The hotel was nice and had a nice view of the city. One thing I have to say about Middle Eastern cities that I have seen so far is that they get creative with their architecture. The view from the hotel provided ample opportunity to appreciate the creative shapes incorporated in the buildings.
After we checked in, we went down to a restaurant in the hotel. We met up with a lot of our colleagues where some folks decided to partake in the one thing most forbidden in the Kingdom; eat pork. Bahrain does not have many of the same practices that many consider restrictive due to cultural differences in habits. While we were there, we noticed that aside from our contingency of teachers, the rest of the guests at the hotel were one of two types. There were many Saudi men, in their traditional thobes and red checkered scarves, partaking in libations in an environment where it was allowed. The other type were bikers. There must have been some sort of biker events going on that weekend in Bahrain. I lived in Florida for a while, this looked like a small version of Bike Week in Daytona Beach, but the bikers were almost exclusively Arab men. It was an interesting experience, and a diverse set of customers for sure.
The first day of the conference flew by and that after, we hopped in the car of a coworker who had previously lived in Bahrain for 3 years. We listened as he drove around, pointed out significant landmarks, and pulled up to a shawarma place on the side of the road, where they brought us delicious spicy shawarma. To those not familiar, shawarma is a shaved meat burrito of sorts, with potato, sauce, and veggies rolled up inside of a tortilla like wrap. Eating regional food always reminds me of the interconnected nature of all people and cultures. In my experience, nearly every culture has some form of burrito/shawarma, empanada, zatar, pierogi, etc. People know what they like! Give me bread with cheese, potato, and meat stuffed inside. I want to be able to hold my meal in a portable vessel! Anyway, unrelated, and I digress.
That night, we went into the city center with a different group of teachers that we hadn’t known well before. In a school as large as ours, with everyone as busy as they are, and preordained cliques of teachers forming early with each wave of new teachers who come through year to year, we don’t get to know everyone very well. Since 32 of our teachers went to the conference, it was a good opportunity to have a bunch of us in one place. We got to know some teachers well over the trip.
The next day, we caught a ride with the same teacher instead of taking the hotel bus to the conference. We figured we’d get a few extra minutes at breakfast, and have the freedom of not being squished on a bus with 100 other teachers. Of course, we got caught up in Bahrain traffic and showed up to the conference fifteen minutes late. We pretended no one would notice and snuck in the back of the workshop room. When we pulled up, we saw another car of our teachers showing up. About 10 of us were late in total. We locked eyes with their car and everyone simultaneously knew that if we beat the other group, we wouldn’t be the MOST late to show up. We fast walked through the school campus and I opened the door, hoping to sneak into the back room of our workshop. It was inevitable that we would be noticed, but I tried to be as sneaky as possible, hoping that maybe I could get to a seat just in time for the decision makers at our school to notice the people sneaking in behind me. Well, out of the 30 people in the room, 20 or so were from our school, and 10 of us were late. We were noticed. I felt bad, and was embarrassed. I’ll be sure to remember that feeling the next time I have some students try to sneak into my class late. These things happen.
After the conference, we toured the city/island/country a bit more. We went to a local mall and wandered around, where we saw more “forbidden” things such as movie theaters, Christmas holiday displays, and even a “winterberry tree.” It was a cool cultural experience to see the city and check out more of the region.
We found our way to the airport, having foregone any semblance of weekend rest, grading, lesson planning, or leisure time. We piled on to our plane, with about 25 of our teachers. I quickly fell asleep due to exhaustion, in an effort to combat the inevitable exhaustion to come the next day. It was just a short flight back after all.
I woke up just in time to hear about a slight “delay in landing” of no more than five minutes. We landed and walked through a relatively empty airport. Not thinking about it, we gave our re-entry visas to the appropriate officials, and we were quickly waved through the customs inspection line.
When we got our bags and got outside where we were to wait for our bus, one of the teachers told us that the airport was under attack. Let me say that again. The airport. That we were standing in. Was under. Attack. This is a jarring thing to hear. This, of course prompted a universal checking of phones, and as phones were connecting to our local cell phone towers, we were all hearing a symphony of pings from our text messages.
Background context. This blog is not the place to outline the complexity that is the web of drama that is geopolitics in the Middle East. However, the necessary context for this scenario is that Saudi Arabia and the current group in governmental control of Yemen, are at war. The war has been going on for a while. Even this scenario is more complex than that, without figuring in the alleged role of Lebanon, Iran, and other parts of the region. So for the sake of this story, in response to the ongoing war, the government of Yemen fired missiles at the airport in Riyadh, where we were standing. The goal was to attack a civilian target as a part of the ongoing war. So we were in the middle of it. The aforementioned delay was due to the fact that the Saudi government was in the process of shooting down the missile, thus delaying our landing. Apparently, the missile was successfully shot down. Shrapnel from the mid-air explosion landed in the parking lot area of the airport. There is a lot more to the story than that, but for the sake of this blog, and of our experiences, that is all that needs to be said.
Sufficiently freaked out, we got on the (by this time, LOOOOOONG overdue bus) and went back to the compound. It was late, and we were tired, so despite the fact that you could technically argue that we had, moments before, been in the middle of an act of war, we showered and went to sleep for the next night. Needless to say, my Global Politics class was significantly more interesting the next day as school went on as usual. It was a crazy trip, and a story that will probably live long in the pantheon of our overseas adventures.
Fly Invasion
When we got to Saudi Arabia, we noticed that it was...hot. Like very hot. Like one of the hotter and least comfortable situations imaginable. Not quite the humid dripping terrestrial swimming of the Amazon Rainforest, but more of a dry, living in a crock pot kind of feel.
Anyway, we were told when we got here, that “It’ll get comfortable soon. October is comfortably cool.” In response we loaded up our back yard with lawn furniture, a grill, some grassy space and trees, and a general outdoor setup. The idea was we would be able to capitalize on the improved weather the moment it arrived. Sure enough, at the end of October, the weather shifted from “roasting on a spit rotisserie style” to tolerable. We quickly started to shift our social gatherings to our newly established outside space. We even hosted a huge BBQ complete with a Kan Jam tournament.
One thing they don’t tell you, along with the improved, cooler weather, is that the flies migrate to the desert in biblical, plague like fashion. Simple, everyday, black house flies. Nothing more than a nuisance. But man are they a nuisance.
They swarm, land, swirl, and buzz all around constantly. The desert air must make them either impervious to fear, or too dumb to realize that their slow flying airborne meandering leaves them susceptible to simple swats. Their lack of evasive maneuvers makes them easy to hunt down if necessary, but it also makes them oblivious to danger when they land on you. Any given moment two to three will land on your leg. With a quick swat in their direction or a leg kick, they fly away, and immediately resettle on your kneecap as if waiting for a convention. It is a level of determination unparalleled by any beast since the liquid metal guy from Terminator 2.
I’ll still take the cooler temperatures. The bugs are merely a small bother, but damn are they annoying. I’d rather wave off a million flies than a tarantula hawk from Ecuador or a swarm of love bugs in Florida, and I might have to.
Anyway, we were told when we got here, that “It’ll get comfortable soon. October is comfortably cool.” In response we loaded up our back yard with lawn furniture, a grill, some grassy space and trees, and a general outdoor setup. The idea was we would be able to capitalize on the improved weather the moment it arrived. Sure enough, at the end of October, the weather shifted from “roasting on a spit rotisserie style” to tolerable. We quickly started to shift our social gatherings to our newly established outside space. We even hosted a huge BBQ complete with a Kan Jam tournament.
One thing they don’t tell you, along with the improved, cooler weather, is that the flies migrate to the desert in biblical, plague like fashion. Simple, everyday, black house flies. Nothing more than a nuisance. But man are they a nuisance.
They swarm, land, swirl, and buzz all around constantly. The desert air must make them either impervious to fear, or too dumb to realize that their slow flying airborne meandering leaves them susceptible to simple swats. Their lack of evasive maneuvers makes them easy to hunt down if necessary, but it also makes them oblivious to danger when they land on you. Any given moment two to three will land on your leg. With a quick swat in their direction or a leg kick, they fly away, and immediately resettle on your kneecap as if waiting for a convention. It is a level of determination unparalleled by any beast since the liquid metal guy from Terminator 2.
I’ll still take the cooler temperatures. The bugs are merely a small bother, but damn are they annoying. I’d rather wave off a million flies than a tarantula hawk from Ecuador or a swarm of love bugs in Florida, and I might have to.
Halloween
Throughout our lives together, Shannon and I have never lived together in a place where Halloween was a big thing. When we lived in Ecuador, we lived in an apartment building in the middle of the city of Quito. There weren’t really many “neighborhoods” with kids running around asking for candy. Not to mention, on top of that, the Ministry of Education in Catholic, conservative Ecuador dictated that we as a school could not celebrate such a heathen holiday publically. Of course, in response, there were many “Fall Festivals” and things of that nature, but at no point did it ever turn into the notion of Halloween that we were familiar with.
Upon settling in to compound life in Riyadh, we quickly realized that since we were now living in a tiny suburban village with walls, with a 98% reproduction rate, we would need to be prepared for Halloween.
To continue to build my expectations, the compound was going full bore with their preparations. In the barbershop, there was a doll missing limbs with nails sticking out of it, mounted to the wall. There were Christmas trees with dismembered doll heads mounted on top. (Not sure what their thing with dolls is) The soccer field was transformed into a graveyard. A road on the compound turned into a haunted train. They even had a disturbing walled off room with taxidermied rare animals for kids to...take pictures with? Because nothing says Halloween like sitting on top of a dead cheetah’s hips while pretending you are running away from an ostrich. This is a real thing that happened. No idea why.
To prepare, I stocked up on 7 bags of candy. I was determined to NOT be that guy who gives out pennies or apples. I was going to get the good candy and be ready for the onslaught of tiny Wonder Women, Incredible Hulks, and other indistinguishable creatures of cartoon shows I have never seen.
As the night came, Shannon and I told our friends with kids to make sure they stopped by. I dumped what amounted to approximately 17lbs of chocolate into a bowl, with a reserve bowl on deck ready to go for when the first wave subsided. We threw on some scary movies to watch while the kids came through and settled in for a good night.
Shortly after, a group of three kids came by and we hooked them up with all of the cavity inducing chocolatey nougat they could handle. Then...nothing. For like two hours. As the desert sun quickly disappeared behind the beige landscape, we sat there confused, with the haunting image of two bowls of diabetic nuggets of sugar mocking us. So we had a few pieces as we discussed why no kids were coming, obviously.
Throughout the night, we had about three visits, maybe a total of 9 kids came through. I believe I ate more chocolate than I gave out. A few of my high school students came through at the end of the night and of course, they were given fistfulls of chocolate in an effort to preserve my own health. There is no way that having the remaining 6 full bags in the house was going to end well for me.
All in all, I was a little disappointed in the lack of Halloween spirit. When I asked my colleagues later, they all told me that they expected me to be doing something cooler like attending an Embassy party or going out, not sitting at home ready to give candy out. Well, lesson learned. I need to get cooler and less generous. In the meantime, if anyone lives within 10 miles of our compound, let me know if you want some extra chocolate. It’s still in the house, though dwindling daily.
Upon settling in to compound life in Riyadh, we quickly realized that since we were now living in a tiny suburban village with walls, with a 98% reproduction rate, we would need to be prepared for Halloween.
To continue to build my expectations, the compound was going full bore with their preparations. In the barbershop, there was a doll missing limbs with nails sticking out of it, mounted to the wall. There were Christmas trees with dismembered doll heads mounted on top. (Not sure what their thing with dolls is) The soccer field was transformed into a graveyard. A road on the compound turned into a haunted train. They even had a disturbing walled off room with taxidermied rare animals for kids to...take pictures with? Because nothing says Halloween like sitting on top of a dead cheetah’s hips while pretending you are running away from an ostrich. This is a real thing that happened. No idea why.
To prepare, I stocked up on 7 bags of candy. I was determined to NOT be that guy who gives out pennies or apples. I was going to get the good candy and be ready for the onslaught of tiny Wonder Women, Incredible Hulks, and other indistinguishable creatures of cartoon shows I have never seen.
As the night came, Shannon and I told our friends with kids to make sure they stopped by. I dumped what amounted to approximately 17lbs of chocolate into a bowl, with a reserve bowl on deck ready to go for when the first wave subsided. We threw on some scary movies to watch while the kids came through and settled in for a good night.
Shortly after, a group of three kids came by and we hooked them up with all of the cavity inducing chocolatey nougat they could handle. Then...nothing. For like two hours. As the desert sun quickly disappeared behind the beige landscape, we sat there confused, with the haunting image of two bowls of diabetic nuggets of sugar mocking us. So we had a few pieces as we discussed why no kids were coming, obviously.
Throughout the night, we had about three visits, maybe a total of 9 kids came through. I believe I ate more chocolate than I gave out. A few of my high school students came through at the end of the night and of course, they were given fistfulls of chocolate in an effort to preserve my own health. There is no way that having the remaining 6 full bags in the house was going to end well for me.
All in all, I was a little disappointed in the lack of Halloween spirit. When I asked my colleagues later, they all told me that they expected me to be doing something cooler like attending an Embassy party or going out, not sitting at home ready to give candy out. Well, lesson learned. I need to get cooler and less generous. In the meantime, if anyone lives within 10 miles of our compound, let me know if you want some extra chocolate. It’s still in the house, though dwindling daily.
Carpet Party
One of the things this part of the world is known for is carpets. Persian rugs, magic carpets. These are symbolic of the region and can be found rolled and stacked in corners of souks, store fronts, or in this case, in the back of the van of a man from Jeddah.
The intricacies of selecting and buying good quality carpets are profound. From recognizing the style and region, to the dyes and raw materials used, to the tassels that finish the edges, to the number of knots used in the design - one could easily minor in The Art and History of Carpets.
Because there are so many carpets in the region, and not all of them equal in quality, it is good practice to educate one’s self on the criteria for what makes a good carpet. And if possible, to buy your carpets from a reputable source. In other words, you ask your friends if they “gotta guy”.
One of the teachers from school, it turns out, does “got a guy” who is from Pakistan originally but has lived in Jeddah for the past 15 years. Once or twice a year, she coordinates a carpet show for her friends and teachers on the compound and Mohammad loads up his van with carpets and makes the 2-day drive into Riyadh.
Justin and I were invited to the hostesses house for our first “carpet show”. I baked pumpkin scones for the occasion. Then we took a seat along the edges of the living room and waited for the show to begin, first with a brief introduction to the art of carpets.
Mohammed told us that he came from a family of carpet makers in Pakistan. He unrolled the first carpet and showed us the backing so we could see the hundreds of tiny knots looped there. A carpet of this size (approximately 5’x8’), he explained, takes three people sitting side by side close to 8 months to make. These carpets are woven by hand by members of a family. Some styles of carpets are considered “wedding carpets” and are knotted by the bride and her family as a gift to the marital home. Most carpets are made from wool, some are made from a blend of wool and silk, and others are made entirely from silk. The silk thread is so fine, explained Mohammed, that it is not uncommon for the carpet maker to slice and bloody their fingers during the weaving process.
After explaining the various techniques, colors, patterns, and styles typical of the many regions where these carpets are made (Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Russia), the show began. Assisted by his son, Mohammed unfurled one carpet after another in the center of the living room. He would name the region it was from, tell us how long it would have taken to make, and the price. Large rectangle carpets, long runner carpets, square carpets, and small carpets were piled one on top of another at our feet.
The procedure here is, once you see a carpet that you may be interested, you grab it off the pile and fold it up by your feet. This does result, on occasion, to a few amusing bouts of tug-o-war between two opposing carpet enthusiasts, but eventually once concedes and the prized carpet is added to the growing pile at the victor’s feet.
The mound of carpets on the floor grew steadily higher as Mohammed unrolled close to 60 carpets, each one unique and beautiful in its own right. The silk carpets are especially impressive, as they emit a subtle shimmer in the light and the designs are so fine you can’t imagine ever putting something so gorgeous on your floor. In fact, most of these silk carpets are hung on walls as works of art and not to be trodden upon.
Justin and I were the first to pull a carpet, a long runner dyed in deep reds, blues, greens, and golds, and featuring multi-colored tassels on the edges. The second carpet we pulled was a large Turk style rug in royal blue and dark red, with medallions repeating along the edges and down the middle. These carpets are so gorgeous and come in such unexpected color combinations that you don’t think twice about having to reimagine the entire color scheme of your home to fit the rug , instead of the other way around (Sorry, Justin! We will be repainting that wall soon…).
The third and final carpet we selected was a small 2’x3’ in golds and oranges. These small rugs, Mohammed explained are usually made by the younger children in the family. Using the left over scraps and materials from a larger, more sophisticated carpet, the children make smaller rugs as a way to practice their craft. So the knots may not be as tight, the patterns not as sharp, as they are essentially, “starter rugs”.
Finally, with the last carpet unrolled and a pile of rugs in the floor almost waist-high, it was time to make decisions. Now Mohammed removes a carpet at a time, rolls or folds them back up and you have a second chance to see them all and maybe make one last impulse buy. Then you can move to another area of the house to spread out your finalists and make your decisions. Needless to say we were swept up in the experience and purchased all three that we had pulled aside.
At home that evening, we placed our new carpets around the house and then took turns laying on them, and saying fun things like, “Oh, can you imagine we used to lay on common store-bought area rugs?! The horror!). But we literally laid on our magic carpet and watched Netflix for the rest of the evening. And maybe we’ll be eating Ramen noodles for the next month to offset the cost of these lovely rugs, but at least we’ll be doing it in style.
The intricacies of selecting and buying good quality carpets are profound. From recognizing the style and region, to the dyes and raw materials used, to the tassels that finish the edges, to the number of knots used in the design - one could easily minor in The Art and History of Carpets.
Because there are so many carpets in the region, and not all of them equal in quality, it is good practice to educate one’s self on the criteria for what makes a good carpet. And if possible, to buy your carpets from a reputable source. In other words, you ask your friends if they “gotta guy”.
One of the teachers from school, it turns out, does “got a guy” who is from Pakistan originally but has lived in Jeddah for the past 15 years. Once or twice a year, she coordinates a carpet show for her friends and teachers on the compound and Mohammad loads up his van with carpets and makes the 2-day drive into Riyadh.
Justin and I were invited to the hostesses house for our first “carpet show”. I baked pumpkin scones for the occasion. Then we took a seat along the edges of the living room and waited for the show to begin, first with a brief introduction to the art of carpets.
Mohammed told us that he came from a family of carpet makers in Pakistan. He unrolled the first carpet and showed us the backing so we could see the hundreds of tiny knots looped there. A carpet of this size (approximately 5’x8’), he explained, takes three people sitting side by side close to 8 months to make. These carpets are woven by hand by members of a family. Some styles of carpets are considered “wedding carpets” and are knotted by the bride and her family as a gift to the marital home. Most carpets are made from wool, some are made from a blend of wool and silk, and others are made entirely from silk. The silk thread is so fine, explained Mohammed, that it is not uncommon for the carpet maker to slice and bloody their fingers during the weaving process.
After explaining the various techniques, colors, patterns, and styles typical of the many regions where these carpets are made (Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Russia), the show began. Assisted by his son, Mohammed unfurled one carpet after another in the center of the living room. He would name the region it was from, tell us how long it would have taken to make, and the price. Large rectangle carpets, long runner carpets, square carpets, and small carpets were piled one on top of another at our feet.
The procedure here is, once you see a carpet that you may be interested, you grab it off the pile and fold it up by your feet. This does result, on occasion, to a few amusing bouts of tug-o-war between two opposing carpet enthusiasts, but eventually once concedes and the prized carpet is added to the growing pile at the victor’s feet.
The mound of carpets on the floor grew steadily higher as Mohammed unrolled close to 60 carpets, each one unique and beautiful in its own right. The silk carpets are especially impressive, as they emit a subtle shimmer in the light and the designs are so fine you can’t imagine ever putting something so gorgeous on your floor. In fact, most of these silk carpets are hung on walls as works of art and not to be trodden upon.
Justin and I were the first to pull a carpet, a long runner dyed in deep reds, blues, greens, and golds, and featuring multi-colored tassels on the edges. The second carpet we pulled was a large Turk style rug in royal blue and dark red, with medallions repeating along the edges and down the middle. These carpets are so gorgeous and come in such unexpected color combinations that you don’t think twice about having to reimagine the entire color scheme of your home to fit the rug , instead of the other way around (Sorry, Justin! We will be repainting that wall soon…).
The third and final carpet we selected was a small 2’x3’ in golds and oranges. These small rugs, Mohammed explained are usually made by the younger children in the family. Using the left over scraps and materials from a larger, more sophisticated carpet, the children make smaller rugs as a way to practice their craft. So the knots may not be as tight, the patterns not as sharp, as they are essentially, “starter rugs”.
Finally, with the last carpet unrolled and a pile of rugs in the floor almost waist-high, it was time to make decisions. Now Mohammed removes a carpet at a time, rolls or folds them back up and you have a second chance to see them all and maybe make one last impulse buy. Then you can move to another area of the house to spread out your finalists and make your decisions. Needless to say we were swept up in the experience and purchased all three that we had pulled aside.
At home that evening, we placed our new carpets around the house and then took turns laying on them, and saying fun things like, “Oh, can you imagine we used to lay on common store-bought area rugs?! The horror!). But we literally laid on our magic carpet and watched Netflix for the rest of the evening. And maybe we’ll be eating Ramen noodles for the next month to offset the cost of these lovely rugs, but at least we’ll be doing it in style.
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