Lean Back

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.