Safe Havens and Semi-Adoptions.

Numerous cats hawk the streets of Riyadh and spill over into compounds.  And in every compound is someone who feeds the cats which is all well and good till That Someone leaves the compound and the cats come to the neighbours, or the cat averse new tenant, looking for their free meal of the day - then they can become annoying.  I have shooed away a cat or three from our doorstep toward the guy in a big villa on the corner who has a reputation for feeding strays because we aren't really cat lovers -  although I say that with a cat currently snoozing on the couch next to me.  I never thought the day would come when I would admit that we have, through cat stealth, semi-adopted one of Riyadh's strays.   This does not mean we have become cat lovers in the plural sense of 'cats', we are simply 'single cat' appreciators.

Every now and then, when cat numbers got a bit large and numerous cat fights or cat couplings, (which I learned from Miss Louise, a woman with a wealth of information, is a noisy affair), disturb residents' sleep, compound management would do a cat cull.   For some obscure reason security used to get tasked with the job of cat catching and could be spotted running around the coffee shop (because cats are naturally drawn to where the food is) with sacks.  They didn't look particularly happy about their job, I'm fairly certain cat scratches were many, but what can you do when the boss says cull time?

Suggestions from tenants that they get a net or a trap to make the job more effective and safe for all critters concerned fell on deaf ears because everybody is well aware that managment wouldn't actually spend a cent on proper equipment for this job!  If you live here just for a short while you quickly figure out that Saudi hierarchy are, by and large, cheapskates. (Actually, let me clarify - the Egyptian guy hired to oversee operations probably has a deal with the Indian bloke in charge of the books and together they figure out ways to skim money off the top, which doesn't really bother the Saudi owner provided lots of cash is still coming his way while all complaints are being curbed at the door by the Lebanese office bloke who is also on the take.  Which pretty much sums up the way the Arab world works, in this country anyways, and still makes the Saudi hierarchy cheapskates but with an added attitude of zero responsibility for anything - after all, it wasn't me, it was them!  Which all results in no left over cash for, or interest in, purchasing proper equipment for trivial things like cat trapping).

Rumour has it the captured critters were taken somewhere else (eg - to the desert) and let go.  Survival is then up to 'The One Who Knows All', you know, that big Kahuna who supposedly created everything.  Apparently the general consensus here in Saudi is that killing cats would make the The One very unhappy with humans but dumping furry creations in the desert where survival is questionable is perfectly OK.  It would be nice if cat culls happened in winter when the lowered desert temps gave the released felines a fighting chance, but in the past that was rarely the case on our compound.  Probably because much like people, cats like to be out and about on a balmy summer evening.

When a cat cull was underway it paid to keep your friendly cats locked up indoors so they weren't mistaken for cat riff raff and caught up in the cat crowd. (I had images of The Boy In The Striped Pajamas as I was typing that sentence - a fantastic, terrible movie!)

I'm speaking in past tense about Cat Culls because they used to happen on our compound before we found out about the Open Paws Trap, Neuter and Release program and informed management, which you can read about on my post Turf Wars - as with anything in Saudi, this was not a straight forward exercise!

Anyway, one warm summer evening soon after a cat cull we were moon bathing by the pool eating our dinner (we find the heat of a summer day far to hot to be lying by the pool, so wait till the sun has set to get comfy in the sun loungers), when this tiny ginger and white head peeped out from behind a sun lounger nearby.  It looked so forlorn.  And nervous.  And cautious.  Yet hunger was making it sit nearby where it could smell our roast chicken just waiting for a tidbit to drop to the ground. Obviously, we decided, its mother had been 'relocated' because she was nowhere to be seen and this kitten was very young.
It sat there. Silent. Wretched. Watching.
Hubster tossed a tidbit.

The kitten lifted its head.  Sniffed.  Looked at us looking at him.  Looked at the little piece of meat, then raced out grabbed it and scuttled back behind the chair.  It never made a sound but kept on peeking.  He eventually got another morsel which, I have to say, was a surprise.  The Hubster is not renowned in the family for his Cat Love.  But this little thing had struck a chord with his quiet, non-annoying, persistence.

The next night the kitten was back and he did the same thing.  Just lay behind the chair, watched, waited and eventually got rewarded.  The kitten must have followed us home because the next evening he was laying low in the impatiens plants beside our apartment door.  He looked so tiny peeping out from under his attempted camouflage.  "Look at that", I said to Hubster.  And we started putting a little plate out at night by the flower bed to feed the kitten.  We always watched him eat because although this kitten may have gotten under Hubsters tough Cat Armour, we had no intention of leaving food lying around for the rest of the felines hawking about the place.  Plus we didn't want one of the big boys coming along and beating this little guy up.  Once he was done our guard duty was over and the dish was removed.

Just to be clear - we only semi-adopted this kitten who we have called Cat because we aren't very imaginative and (quite frankly, it suits him) because we will not be taking him with us when we go and he has to learn to survive in Riyadh's Cat World without us.  To that end, we never feed cat a lot of food nor, since he has grown up quite a bit, do we put a bowl out for him every day.  "He's a stray" I would say, "and he needs to know how to fend for himself not rely on us because we often go away and one day we will leave".  So when we are in town he gets enough to keep him going but not so much he'll get fat and lazy.

I think it extremely mean of expats to adopt cats while here, to take them in, feed them, love them, keep them in-doors treated like one of the family and then turf the animal into the wilds of the street with their final exit.  Just the other week we found one of those cats, a pure white lady who had recently birthed and she looked like life on the street had put her through the Hard Cat Life wringer.  She was scraggy.  Her long white hair, matted all over her body, was filthy and she was looking malnourished and dejected.  But when a hand was reached out to stroke her she hesitated only for a moment, craving a love she used to know.  A truly wild street cat would definitely not do that.  Our cat loving neighbour has taken her in to get her, and her offspring, back to health.

Our Cat was eventually enticed out from under the flowers to the doorstep if we sat quietly enough next to his dish.  It took a long while before he deigned to let us stoke him out on the doorstep, though he never really looked comfortable with that, so we never pushed it.

One day while Hubster was on the couch and I was in the kitchen and our door was open, the growing kitten ventured inside the apartment, ever so slowly edging his way along the wall, cautiously sniffing here and there.  I still remember him skating on the tiled floor his legs racing on the spot like some cartoon character in his rush to get back out the door when one of us moved and frightened the daylights out of him.

A friend who heard about the kitten very kindly gave us a cat stand.  (Hubster was horrified - that was going too far, but I thought it may prove interesting).  We introduced the kitten to the stand and he loved it.  He would make a game of creeping into the apartment, jumping on the cat stand, then leaping off and racing out the door, skidding and sliding on the floor tiles all the way saving his final vault out onto the welcome mat at front our door to send it careening down the steps with him surfing on top.  The mat would be returned to its place because we used to like watching his antics.

Cat is a bit big for the cat stand now, though will still jump onto it for a scratch or to sleep when he is banished from the furniture - which is often when The Hubster is around.  He is quite at home in the apartment when he comes strolling in these days.  In fact, this is cat as I type...

How he has managed to wheedle his way from his cat stand to the couch with me in situ has been a long and slow process, but wheedle he has.  It has helped his cause that he is quite a bright cat.  He doesn't push his luck while in house.  No pulling rubbish out of the kitchen bin (like his mate The Black Cat who has, on occasion without us knowing until we hear plastic bag fossicking, followed cat indoors), no jumping on the bench in search of food (Black Cat again - varmint!), he tries very hard not to scratch and claw at the furnishings saving that activity for the pole on the cat stand, and should he forget a light tap on his paws stops him in his tracks.  And if he turns up while we are having dinner (we tend to leave our door open when at home in the evenings for the breeze)  he does now what he did when he first arrived on the scene.  He'll sit a little distance off, looking hopeful.  He also understands the word 'Out', and out he'll go.

To this day I have never picked cat up.  A visitor tried one day and is wearing the scratch marks for his effort.  He does, however, after five years, quite like a scratch under the chin and will curl up beside me on the couch on those evenings he just needs someone nearby while he sleeps.

Cat has only spent a few full nights inside our apartment, but those were special occasions - each night, even as that tiny kitten with an obviously well tuned survival instinct, he gets turfed back outside when we go to bed.

Very early on in our relationship Cat went AWOL.  He was gone for almost a week.  I figured he'd found someone else to feed him or come to an untimely end in a fight.  Then one morning we woke to a pounding on the door - 'Bang, bang, bang. Bang bang bang', in quick succession and a desperate crying.  I opened the door and in shot Cat - straight under the couch.  He stayed there all day.  When I finally enticed him out he looked a mess.  Dirty, bedraggled and with two huge patches of bare flesh around his shoulder and neck where fur should have been.  He got to spend that night in the apartment, hidden in the the little dark cubby at the base of the cat stand, with cat biscuits and a warm blanket.

Quite often cat will simply sit on our doorstep without coming in at all.  Our neighbor thought I'd trained him that way.  But no.  I guess he just feels relatively safe there surveying the neighborhood as it does offer quite a good view of the path where he can easily spot any approaching feline that should be avoided like nasty Ginger Tom on his nightly prowl or the mean White Mess looking for an extra meal.

Ginger Tom likes to beat up other cats.  He is afraid of people so tends to sit in the shadows till he thinks the way is clear to come a steal Cats food.  The White Mess also likes to beat up other cats (even Ginger Tom) and is not afraid of humans and will boldly head up the steps, hissing and growling his way to the bowl as Cat backs off.  Anyone who thinks being a stray is fun needs to spend more time watching the cats in their neighborhood.  It's a tough street life.

Cat used to run inside and hide under the couch when the big boys were patrolling the grounds and our door was open, now he tends to stand his ground, just for a bit because he knows nasty cat visits on our doorstep are not tolerated and something with clout is usually thrown out the open door at offenders. Our neighborly cat lover thinks we should just let all the visiting cats eat.  She's crazy.

Cat, after he's sufficiently fed, will curl up next to me when I sit on the front steps strumming on my guitar, just chillin'.  (He obviously doesn't have an ear for good music otherwise he'd find someplace else to sit).  These days Cat feels brave enough to stay beside me when Ginger Tom passes by, taking a wide berth because Ginger and Hubster do not see eye to eye and many a thing has been biffed in Ginger Toms direction to let him know how unwelcome he is.  (As I mentioned earlier, the Husband has this lack of other Cat Love).

When we put Cat out he usually sits about on the door mat for a awhile (I've seen him through the curtains) and then skedaddles to places unknown, occasionally not coming back for days.

A few evenings it is obvious Cat has had a hard time out in Riyadh's Cat World because he will turn up at the apartment early, sometimes looking dirty and ruffled, occasionally carrying an injury,  and he'll jump on the cat stand, sprawl himself out and crash.  I can walk past, lift his paws, twiddle his ears or pull back his lips and he won't flinch.  He is out for the count.  On a couple of those occasions I haven't had the heart to throw him out because, clearly, cat needs a rest, so he has got to spend those nights indoors.  It's nice to know he feels safe enough to completely zonk out in the apartment.  Around 4am he will walk into the bedroom and make a few mewling sounds to wake us so we can put him out.  Cat has never gone to the toilet in the house.  Not even when he was little.

Waving goodbye to Cat when we leave will be a time of mixed emotions, I'm sure.  We have, after all, deliberately only semi-adopted him knowing our life here is temporary (though that 2 years has extended to quite a healthy 7 at last count) and that he needed to be left outdoors to learn street smarts, only coming to us for a safe or quiet haven.  Cat has worked out a Compound Snack Route to keep himself amply fed.  Our place, Ahmed's place, Theresa's place, Euan's place, the security office and, just recently, Nathalie's place.  And of course the Bar-b-cue area when a group meal is on.  Those, as far as I know, are the Free Cat Food zones available in the compound.  I have no idea  if cat ever ventures out of the compound, though there are a few cats who have ventured in and stayed - Nasty Mess was one of those.  And I know Cat can hunt.  I've seen him chase down a bird and run off over the back fence to devour it.  So I shouldn't be worried about his ability to find food.  It's just I know he needs a refuge, a retreat, a safe house now and then to recharge before heading back out to face the many dangers and challenges of the Stray Cat World in Riyadh.  Where is he going to find that if we aren't here?




Ka Kite,
Kiwi

The Hunt For Vege Seeds in Riyadh

While wandering the street during salah one day a year or two after my arrival in Riyadh, I came across a Sultan Gardens store on Takhasussi St and decided to hang about till it re-opened.  Not because I wanted gardening supplies.  Because I was missing a garden.  A vegetable garden, that is.

Riyadh is the only place we have lived where we have not, almost immediately, put in a vege patch.  Perhaps it's because we were new to apartment living, or perhaps it is because we were living in the Saudi Arabia, renowned for its quirky rules, but I remember looking at all the other apartments in our block the day I arrived and registering the complete lack of anything green or plant like in their windows or on their doorsteps.  Maybe, I recall thinking to myself, other than the beautifully landscaped patches of common grounds with their arty seating and rocky rook waterfalls, gardening isn't allowed here.

It was a fleeting thought, chased away with a shrug of the shoulders as my mind set itself to other things about this new life that needed attention.  Eventually though, this green grass, country girl, while sitting on her front stairs, started wondering what that common ground would look like planted out in spuds with a bean runner at one end.

The Husband and I hail from rural NZ.  We're used to space - the quarter acre section with someones paddock over the back fence.  And within that space has always been a vege patch.  My father dug up a garden whenever the whanau moved homes.  And with nine mouths to feed, Hubsters father found a large garden made economic sense too.  I guess vege gardening is in our genes hence the reason we like them, much more so than the flower gardens that beautify our compound.

Our compound is lovely, it really is, and I often tell people we reside in a pretty compound.  But that's just it.  It's pretty.  And someone else maintains it.  Gardeners turn up regularly to cut grass, trim trees, fix the watering system, tend to the flower beds, weed, take out plants and put in plants. Granted they've planted a couple of herb bushes about the place, specifically Thyme (aka Zataar) which, along with mint, seems to be a Saudi herb staple, and it all works to make the compound pleasant to look at.  But I doubt that taking a spade to our landscaped compound lawn to stick in some rows of silver beet would have been appreciated by fellow tenants or the manager.

One day I noticed tomato plants coming up in the beautifully maintained flower beds and thought 'Wow, tomatoes. Awesome'.  A few weeks went by and the spindly plants had started bending toward the ground due to lack of supports and tiny yellow flowers could be seen, 'Cool', I thought, 'tomatoes soon'.  Shortly after, the garden maintenance crew turned up and ripped out the young tomato plants. and replaced them with pansies (or something similarly flowery).  This vege patch kinda girl spent the day feeling somewhat deflated.

Though I think the pansies (or whatever flower it is that is flowering in our compound right now, because flowered plants are simply not my forfeit), look lovely, having someone else stick them in the ground, then remove them as per the management gardening plan doesn't really soothe the soul like do it yourself vegetable gardening.

It was time, I decided, to start growing vegetables.

Potted veges at our front door, because we don't have a back door, (our compound was built at a time when OSH was a money making twinkle in somebody's eye), I told the Hubster my plan.  He reminded me that the lack of shade at our doorstep at heat battered times of the day (which in summer is pretty much all day), would only result in shriveled plants and be akin to plant abuse!  No matter.  I was on a mission.

Two places were touted as the 'Go To' for gardening supplies in Riyadh as I headed off in search of vegetable seeds to soothe my gardening soul - Sultan Gardens or one of the roadside nurseries that seem to be placed at random spots along the main roads.

Sultan Gardens has lovely garden decor for landscaping purposes - rustic iron seats, huge fountains suitable for family palaces, ceramic pots of all sizes, artistic stone ornaments and, of course, the outdoor flowers and shrubbery to go in them.  But no vege seedlings.

The nurseries had bags of soil, loads of potted trees and flowers, but no veges.  Why, I asked Mr Noor, are there no vegetable seeds in the gardening shops?  We concluded that the home vege patch isn't really a Saudi urban thing.

Chats with Saudi's friends when describing my mission at that time backed up that assumption.  Patches of dirt for vege gardens isn't really factored into the typical modern Saudi urban home design.  That isn't to say they don't eat veges.  They do.  But the growing of vegetables is somebody else's concern or takes place out of the city on the farm.  One Saudi friend noted, with a hint of sarcasm, that if the modern Saudi home design did include a garden it is highly likely the maid or driver would be put in charge of its care!  Okey dokey, I'll wait a year or two while considering how to put that into print - and there it is...

Suggestions that we move to a farm out of town a little, or simply lease a patch of ground someplace  nearby so I can get my vege gardening fix fell then, and fall still, on deaf Hubster ears.  (After much meditation it has dawned on me I am probably grasping at rather large straws with those ideas).

Another option for my vege patch fix was making regular visits to an organic garden owned by a local Prince who, I understand, is an excellent chef that I mentioned in my previous post  Organic Garden in Wadi Hanifah.  Any excess from his garden is sold to expats.  Having never had to travel huge distances to my vege patch before, stubborn, pouty old me didn't want to have to start that kind of nonsense back then.   I have since figured out that living in Saudi requires adjusting your mind set to doing things differently, if you want to do anything at all.

As you can imagine, the day I found packets of vegetable seeds in Lulu's I was totally stoked and bought more than a few. So, though it has taken a while, over the Saudi winter I have a range of vegetable plants at our front door - tomatoes, capsicum, and lettuce with mustard and radish - and I love them.  My eyes search out the green and growing plants each time I return home and evenings are spent sitting on the stairs beside the pots thinking how lucky I am to have them.  Just looking at them brings me peace.

During the summer months, Hubster is right.  The summer sun glares relentlessly at our front door and, because we tend to leave the country for a week or three heading for cooler climates at that time of year, the plants don't stand a chance of surviving.  I have considered asking security to take up watering duties but, as they already look after Cat on our jaunts away, I don't think it fair to impose any more on their time.  So as the weather warms up, any remaining plants are turned into the soil until August when I can start my vege pot patch all over again.


Summer is drawing to a close now and I am eyeing my empty pots and planning another trip to Lulu's for seeds and the local roadside stalls for bags of soil and, wait for it....vege seedlings.  The roadside nurseries have got themselves up with the play and it is possible to find little pottles of tomatoe seedlings and one or two other vegetables.  I might pop into Sultan Gardens as well, just because.  Hubster has decided that perhaps my mission needs help, so he has managed to find a couple of guttering channels (a bit of a chore in a place that doesn't tack them on to building rooves because it rains so rarely) to put together a hydroponic system at our front door to complement the pot collection.  I knew he wouldn't stay out of the vege garden for too long.

Ka Kite,
Kiwi

Turf Wars

Turf wars are everywhere, even in our compound.  Our opinion of said wars, both feral and human, swings between entertained and confounded.  It is amazing what people will get their knickers in a twist about in this place.  This week it's cats.

We have a few cats on the compound, most of them wild.  (Actually all of them, bar an import from Portugal, are wild).  There are a few people who feed the cats. Either they have, like us, semi-adopted a cat (whose name is Cat, a name the grandchildren consider a non-name), or they simply put out plates of left over food for whichever cat is wandering by at the time.

There are other tenants on the compound, we'll call them the 'The Anti-Catters' (AC's for brevity), who consider the cats a bit of a nuisance,  I'm guessing they, like many of their fellow Other Arabs, aren't really animal loving people. (Perhaps this is gross stereotyping of Other Arabs, however I have seen so many of our Other Arab residents jump in sheer horror when something live with fur on it enters their personal space that the conclusion isn't that hard to reach).

I have to say that, on the rare occasions when all the compound cats do decide to crawl out of the sprinkler storage systems, where they like to spend their days in relative comfort, and sit about waiting for a free nighttime feed from whoever is cooking on the Bar-B-Q, there are quite a few of them.  Occasionally there is a spot of caterwauling too, but as I sleep next to a nightly chainsaw called Snoring Hubster, cat calls don't generally make it onto my night sounds radar.

Recently, emails have been flying between the AC's and Management about the cats on the compound.  Apparently one or two among our population of felines has been attacking children.  I hazard a guess that said children like to chase the cats into corners.  Any child capable of chasing a cat into a corner is old enough to understand that cats, wild or otherwise, when chased into corners are not very friendly.  I'm not sure if the parents have taken the time to explain proper treatment of animals to their offspring so that cat chases and subsequent scratches would highly likely be avoided.  Or perhaps the parents have tried this course and aren't aware that the child they are raising isn't a very good listener  -  a category into which a number of kids around here seem to fall.

So the cats have come under fire and all must be removed, according to the Anti-catters.  Others of us approached Management about the Trap, Neuter and Return (TNR) program that Open Paws offers and Management was very open to the idea.  However, the Anti-catters weren't happy with that plan at all.  They wanted, neigh demanded, removal of all felines on the compound.

We've tried explaining that removal of the current, relatively healthy, fairly stable population of cats will probably result in one of two things, (or both if we get really lucky) - an increase in vermin such as mice, rats, lizards, roaches and scorpions, or the removed population will simply be replaced by wilder, more mangy, street cats who will scrap each other over there newly aquired, recently vacated territory.  We even mentioned that neutering will reduce the number of new kittens being produced and will also result in less yowling because cats yowl when on heat and mating.  But all our explanations are falling on deliberately stony ears under the excuse of 'religion'.  So we even sent through a few scholarly discussions about how neutering is actually better for cat health.  But the Anti-catter's still won't be persuaded.

We have come to the conclusion that such stone walling is not actually about the cats or the common sense of our argument.  It's about the Anti-Catter's getting their own way.  You see, our current management is relatively new, so the Anti-Catters have seen an opportunity to exert some control over compound affairs.  Why they feel the need to exert such control is beyond me, but they do. Possibly this urge hit them because new management is a woman with a soft touch.  Previous management (also a woman but made of sterner stuff) couldn't be bothered with the pettiness and demands of our resident Other Arabs, so kept them, and their politics, where it belonged - out of our faces.  The new management, unfortunately, prefers to entertain them, hence their politics and turf wars are now beginning to divide our compound.

To make matters worse, should the new management try to make a decision that the AC's not like, they simply run to the bloke above her, (we'll call him Over The Top Management), who just happens to be of the same nationality as the AC's and he, naturally being of the same ilk, the sort of ilk that doesn't want men to appear weaker than women, but doesn't seem to mind if they appear somewhat more stupid) supports everything they say.

It's quite sad.
And annoying.
At the same time.

So, as far as the cat saga goes, Miss Management decided to do the responsible thing and agreed to the TNR program.  The thought that cats would be clubbed, drowned or dumped in the desert made her feel bad.  Consequently, we cat adopters got together with Miss Management and worked with Open Paws to trap the cats.  Our Lovely Vet neutered the cats.  And then the AC's kicked up a stink!  They sent emails saying, neigh demanding, that the cats not be returned.  They must have been quite aggressive emails for Miss Management to turn around within an hour and tell Our Lovely Vet to keep the cats.  (I know it was within an hour because it takes me 40 minutes to walk to the nearby mall and when I passed by Miss Management on my way out she was quite positive about the cats, and before I'd reached the Mall, Lovely Vet rang to ask what the heck was going on as Miss Management had changed her mind).

Miss Management did concede that those who had adopted cats could go and pick them up but the cats were to be kept indoors at all times!  I'm guessing the AC's and Over The Top Management felt very good about themselves demanding those terms.

Much discussion was had between Management, we cat adopters and Our Lovely Vet (not necessarily in that order).  In the end it was concluded that Management had entered into an agreement to Trap, Neuter and Return.  The trap and neuter part went without a hitch.  The return was going to be completed one way or another.

So it appears that the the cats are back, (minus two - a mother who had to be euthanased and another who management was adamant was not to be returned).  Should Miss Management, at the behest of the Anti-cat lobby, decide now to trap and remove the cats, she can. But a cat that has been trapped once is highly unlikely to enter a trap again...so good luck with that folks!

(The Anti-Catters might be interested to know that there is also a new cat on the compound.  A huge grey male with a massive head and big nuts!  I'm guessing he's one of those wild street cats who took advantage of the fact there were no cats on our compound for over 48 hours and decided to move in and claim his new turf.  Here's hoping he never gets chased into a corner by the resident kids with no ears, because by the looks of him, he could do some serious damage.)

Ka Kite,
Kiwi

Ma'salama, I'm Leaving Saudi

You're invited to my Ma'salama - I'm leaving Saudi.  That invite, or something similar, arrives in my e-mail on a fairly regular basis.  A ma'salama is a farewell party, though the literal meaning of the word is 'Peace be with you'.  People tend to celebrate leaving Saudi permanently.  We're getting out.  Woohoo good for us.  Never mind you losers still left here to suffer...that's the general feeling put out there anyways.  Though, believe it or not, I've met people who admit they are actually going to miss the place.

Yes, there are some folks who are sad to leave Saudi.  They have enjoyed their experience, which doesn't mean it was all smooth sailing, they just took Saudis quirkiness in their stride. For all its 'weirdness' Saudi isn't that bad a country to live in, as an expat.  We're a very welcoming community (mostly) and it is possible to do whatever you want here if you look hard enough.  It's that sense of community that people miss once they get back to their rat racing homelands.

Heck, I even know a number of people who left with a 'Cheerio, I'm never coming back' and a year or two later, here they are again! (I don't reckon those types should get another crack at a Ma'salama - not unless the second time round is substantial, like 20 years!)

Anyway, Ma'salama parties come in all shapes and sizes - the formal occasion, the small dinner party, the compound shindig or the desert blow out.  I guess it depends how many friends you have and what kind of circles you circulate in.

Some people don't have a ma'salama.  They sneak out in the dead of night, only telling their nearest and dearest they are leaving.  Usually that's because they have been sacked.  Or they're doing a runner.

Hubster says its not easy to sack someone in Saudi because the Labour Law is quite clear on the when's, why's and how's of any dismissal,  but it does seem to happen quite frequently, the typical 'we have to let you go' reason being 'We don't have a role for you here anymore' or
'We're not renewing your contract'
'Why not?'
'We're just not.' - which isn't actually a sacking, though it feels like one.

I understand those who do runners usually have a lot of debt they're trying to escape, though I know one guy who went out on holiday and never came back because his boss had started being a prat.  Generally speaking, if you do a runner you should have no intention of ever coming back to Saudi because re-entry could be very problematic for you.

Whether you choose to end your contract, or it is chosen for you, once you're on a Final Exit you have to rattle your dags because without a job you shouldn't be staying in the country and Final Exits usually come with a time frame for getting your exit visa sorted and your heeny on a plane.  Women who leave Saudi for good swear black and blue they are going to the airport without an abaya and wearing a mini-skirt.  Alcohol at the Ma'salama party is usually responsible for such promises.

We had two Ma'salama's at the end of Feb, both were quiet affairs - one a picnic in the desert, the other a quiet afternoon by the pool with some very zesty apple juice.   Mr UK has headed back to English shores and The Americans are off to Europe.  We will miss Mr UK popping his head out the window for a chat and No 4 won't be the same without The Americans sitting on their patio.  But life in Saudi is a revolving door of people, so we're looking forward to seeing who will be sitting on the patio next month, and who might be popping their head out the window.

No More Maids On Our Compound

Hubster received this message regarding the employment of maids from our compound manager and passed the information to me.  Not that I needed to know, we don't have a maid.  We live in a one bedroom apartment that I am quite capable of keeping clean myself.

However, the response to the notice from others in the compound, who are largely not western, was 'What are we going to do now?' and 'How does the management intend to help everybody out with this situation'.

The management is contemplating their options.

Having a live-in maid, who is also expected to be responsible for the children on top of her cleaning and cooking chores, seems to be considered essential in this county.  Almost like having air con and a frij.

Photo credit: madamenoire.com

Expat discussions on the topic of 'Arabs and maids' (because its not just Saudi families who must have one) usually contain a hint of disdain along with the 'we raised three kids AND did our own cooking and cleaning WHILE holding down a full time job.  Why can't they!'  argument.

It actually doesn't bother me that people have maids.  After all, haven't you ever dreamed of winning Lotto.  I bet a housemaid was on the 'will get myself one of those' Lotto Winning List.  It was on mine.  In my Lotto Dreams I'd have a housemaid, a personal chef, a gardener, a chauffeur, an on call baby-sitter and a palace to house us all.  Hubster would have a king size garage with a Harley and a Ferrari.  He's so easy to please.  I guess folks in Saudi are just living the Lotto Dream.  Though the dream ought to stop at letting an unqualified stranger raise your children.  (Interestingly, I never had a nanny in my Lotto Dreams, just a baby-sitter to look after the kids on those evenings when The Husband and I flew our private jet to Paris for romantic nights out at top French restaurants).

What gets me about Saudi Arabia, is families using the maid to be chief cook, cleaner and child minder.  In my mind, maids assist with cooking and cleaning, nanny's are child minders and should be suitably qualified.

I know Saudi gets dusty and it's a pain in the derriere to have to dust everything every couple of days (OK, so sometimes I only make it round with the duster once a week), so, OK, if you live in a big villa it's nice to be able to palm that job on to someone else.  But I also know that it would annoy the heck out of me to have someone else who is not family living in my home 24/7.  I like to roam around our flat in my undies and so does Hubster.  (What a vision that is!)  In the neck of the woods where I live, young families with only one child and two bedroom apartments tend to have live-in maids!  To me, that would constitute over-crowding of my personal space.  I imagine the maids feel the same way.

It was bad enough having Hubster's Magic Maid turn up once a fortnight to clean our unit when I first arrived in Saudi. (Hubster was living here for 18 months before I made it into the country and he hired her because he was far to busy working to look after the home).  I wasn't sure where to put myself when she was on site.  And advice of friends to stay and watch her clean was, I decided, just crazy talk.  Why the hell would I sit on my couch to watch her clean?  Coffee out was always on my calendar when the Magic Maid called round.  We kept her services for a couple of months till I decided it was ridiculous that I had spare time all day, every day and we had a cleaning maid.

Perhaps it might be time for a whole population of people to have a slight shift in attitude towards 'the neeeed' for a live-in housemaid in Saudi.  Perhaps an astute, motivated person can start a 'Day Maid' service like we used in Australia.

In Oz, Hubster was studying full-time, I was working full-time and the kids were teenagers with school, after-school jobs, after school sport training and weekend sport.  In short, we were all busy.  Our house had an en-suite for Hubster and I, and a main bathroom and toilet for the kids.  As usual, the kids were given a job roster and expected to assist with household chores and keep their own spaces clean - including their bathroom and toilet  Assisting with chores was great.  Keeping their bathroom and toilet clean - well, that required This Mother being on their case.  They got a bollocking one day when, in desperation, This Mother ran into the Their Toilet and, upon seeing the state of it all greeny brown and dirty, her desperation took fright and left.  It was a great example of distraction psychology.

One day, being tired of my 'Dragon Mother on Bathroom Cleaning Mission' role, I sat the kids down (the 'kids' were 18, 16 and 15) and we discussed the problem, eventually nutting out a solution.

They hired a cleaner.
They also paid for her.

I contributed a small amount because I figured if a cleaner was coming once a fortnight I might as well have her do over the kitchen. (Frij and oven cleaning are a real procrastination points for me.)  The stipulation was, if they failed to have the envelope with the cleaners pay on the bookshelf by the door the morning she (her name was Shirley) was due, they were back to cleaning their own bathroom and toilet.  The envelope was never missing.

Yes, a well run day cleaning service might be a good business idea for Saudi because the idea of 'No More Maids' is upsetting a number of people I know, but the cost and responsibilities of sponsoring someone, which would be the legal way of getting your live in maid, aren't making them happy either.



Ka Kite,
Kiwi

Lawn Mower

Fingers are dancing their way across the keyboard, eyes focused on the words that materialized in the wake of each fervent rush of taps, a black trail of prose across a white and waiting canvas.  The 'whish whish' of the washing machine was busy in the background, its familiar sound ignored by the woman staring intently at the screen of the computer balanced purposefully upon her lap as she types and reads, types and reads. 

The typing stops as the woman tilts her head, her eyes no longer held by the tale she is weaving for an audience she imagines exists, and a frown creases her once young brow.  She listens to the sound that has snuck its way under her veil of concentration like the wafting scent of another woman's expensive perfume.  A low rumble is reverberating its way through the closed, lightly curtained windows.

As the noise grows to a roar, the metal door that separates the baking heat of a Saudi summer sun from the air conditioned cool of her one bedroom apartment, begins to emit a metallic 'twing', something it has never done before. 

The woman sits back, and lifts her eyes from the computer screen  'Is that a lawnmower?' she wonders.

She whips the computer from her lap and stands to gaze through the netted curtain, browned by the ever present Saudi dust and in need of another wash.  'OMG', she whispers to herself, a smile of disbelief tugging at the corner of mouth, her unplucked eyebrows raised in astonishment, 'it is a lawnmower! 

The contraption was snarling it's way over the patches of grass huddled between flower beds that would be bursting with healthy colour if the petals weren't limp and leaning under the blazing, orbed sun.  Smoke was pouring from the machines carriage, cloaking the green body driving it in a petrol fumed haze.  'OMG', she says again, exhaling a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding.  'It's a lawnmower!'

That was last year.
I couldn't believe it.  A lawnmower had arrived on the compound.  It was a crappy old thing in need of a spark plug clean among other things.  And the blokes obviously weren't used to it.  They were having trouble maneuvering it between the numerous landscaped tree trunks and clay brick bench seats that adorn our outdoor common areas.

That fact that progress had come to our patch of Saudi real estate in the form of a lawnmower made me chuckle a little to myself.  At the same time, I wondered what would happen to the Bangladeshi guys that had been arriving en masse each week to hand cut our ever green, well watered grass with hedge clippers?  They would creep over the lawns in little huddled groups, crouched on the ground in their dark green overalls, the only sound a snip, snip of clippers or a word spoken to each other in a language I didn't understand.

These days, the hedge clippers are saved for those hard to reach places the mower can't get to.   I'm wondering when they are going to rock up with a Whipper Snipper, retiring the clippers from lawn maintenance duties.

The garden blokes are well versed in the use of a lawn mower now.  It's not a old crappy thing any more, and it doesn't smoke either.  It even has a catcher!

It's funny the things that can capture your attention, isn't it.  Lawnmowers powering their way over back and front yards is a regular occurrence in NZ, and most other places around the globe I presume.  You hardly pay them any notice, except when you have to turn the telly up because the rip of the lawnmower right outside the lounge windows is disrupting you viewing pleasure or wayward blades of grass wind up in boot shaped splotches on the kitchen floor when the lawn mower pusher trudges his (or her) way indoors for a well earned glass of iced water.

The sight and sound of a loud, beaten up lawnmower that the Old Lawmower Club would probably be proud to give a home (I bet you didn't know there was an Old Lawnmower Club did you?), made me feel a little homesick when it arrived that day, a year ago.  Now, of course, the sound of the mower echoing between the compound walls affects me a little less emotionally though, some days, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the thing and cutting a few strips in the lawn myself just to make me feel normal again in this, oft times, surreal country.


Ka Kite,
Kiwi

Cultural Difference on the Squash Court.

Last week I watched cultural difference on the squash court.  A few of the western Blokes on our compound, Hubster included, play squash on the compound court most nights.   In the four years Hubster has lived here neither he nor the other Blokes has ever had to book the squash court which says something about their ability to get along, or get themselves organised, as our compound only boasts 1 squash court.  

The other day a couple of The Blokes were about to go on the court when an Arab expat said, 'T'he court is booked. 
What?
I have booked the court.
Who books the court?
I have.
When?
From 7 till 8.  (Clock is checked.  It's 6.50pm)
Ok, so we have 10 minutes.  We'll just have a quick game, it'll only take 10 minutes.

Mr Arab Man says OK
The Blokes go on court.

Five minutes later I overhear Mr Arab Man, who is a new squash player though not a new tenant, say he is going to ring security if The Blokes don't come off the court on time.
Five minutes after that he rings security.
Security duly comes racing over to tell The Blokes the court is booked by someone else.
The Blokes get a bit ratty and shitty.  Not because Someone Else had booked the court but because he rang security.

Who the hell rings security to tell you to get off the squash court?
Just knock on the bloody door.  You're standing right there.  It's a glass door.  In fact the entire back wall of the court is glass.  You can see right through it.   So just knock, wave or otherwise gesture.

But no.

We have learnt that lots of people in Saudi of non-western persuasion don't really like confrontation.   They like other people to do the confronting for them.  Though, bugger me, I'm not quite sure whats confronting about saying , 'My coach is here now, time for you guys to get off the court.' 

It might have helped, of course, if Mr Arab had mentioned he'd booked the court for a squash lesson.  (This information was passed on by security in response to some verbal argy bargy).  The Blokes may have been a bit less... ummm...irritated about the whole affair if they'd known the situation at the start of their 10 - 15 minutes.  They conceded (three days later) that they wouldn't want a couple of Blokes wasting their precious lesson time if they'd booked a coach. 

But at the time, without such information, The Blokes presumed Mr Arab would do what the other squash players on the compound have always done when someone else has taken to the court.  They Wait.  Usually long enough for the game to be played out.  (Which in the case of the two players in question doesn't take very long).

While waiting, they either watch the game or take a seat, drink a healthy beverage and chinwag. 
If it's a competitive match they often comment. 
If it's not a competitive match they usually joke and laugh about how soon they'll be on the court.
They Warm up.
All the while making it known behind the glass wall that they are ready to go on court as soon as the other Blokes are done.
They sure as heck don't go ring security.

Yes, it's interesting watching cultural differences play out on the squash court.



Ka Kite,
Kiwi