Flying to Jeddah

1-7-11

             Well IV been transferred to Jeddah.  Something that I’m not entirely happy about but I think that this city has a lot of benefits over Riyadh, such as far more liberal, Beach, Scuba diving etc. But these things seem trivial compared to living in the same hotel with multiple other folks in your same position. In Riyadh it was as simple as calling one or two guys to have an adventure. People I could trust to help me out with info or ideas, and people to vent with. Going to Jeddah takes that away. There’s only one other Flight medic at the hotel I’m staying at so who knows what’s on the horizon.

            The process of gong to Jeddah has been a nightmare, of missing stamps and wrong signatures, and when things finally did get worked out, I had 10 hours notice. Oh well I just keep telling myself “the prize is in the journey”

            This was shown to me in full form in the airport the day I left. There was nothing terribly exciting in the beginning.

-Arrive at airport

-Haggle with cabdriver about not changing the price he told me when we left the hotel

-Haggle with Bengali to take my bags (important step if you want to get through the airport in a timely manor

-Find check in counter

-Find someone who speaks English at check in counter

-Wait for some one to show up at counter to say in English that no one speaks English

-Question him in English about his ability to speak English

-Try not to laugh when he explains to you in English that no one speaks English

-Give up on someone speaking English

-Go through security

-Try not to laugh at the first security guy sleeping or X-ray guard not even looking at

-Find coffee

-Sit down to wait for flight

-Read book

This is where things got interesting!!!! I pull out a book that was given to me by a flight medic that had gone home about a week ago. He told me it was a good book   I put it on my nightstand and there it sat. Now rather engrossed in the book I was interrupted by an older Saudi gentleman, wearing only a large towel like cloth around his waste cinched with a small clasp and a similar towel over his shoulders like a shall not covering nearly enough of his hair covered body, asking me to move my carry on so that he could sit down. Later I learned that outfit is worn by those on pilgrimage to Makkah, to them by wearing only simple cloths equalizes them to every man in the eyes of god, meaning that weather you’re a doctor or banker or cab driver during pilgrimage you are all equals to god. I was rather perturbed initially given his lack of attire and that he didn’t sit in any of the other HUNDRED open seats and wanted to sit next to me. Granted I did have a great view of the runway and a beautiful desert landscape behind that, but SERIOUSLY THERE WAS A MILLION OTHER OPEN SEATS. I kindly smiled and moved my bag. He sat down and began asking me in near perfect English about my book. In my frustration of loosening my personal safety bubble I gave the short answer, “Don’t know just started it” He smiles and says, “this book hmm, I know this book.” Suddenly it hit me, I remembered the flight medic who went home telling me several weeks before he gave me the book that it was on the Saudi Banned list. I instantaneously started having visions of the Matawa (Saudi religious police) running a sting operation for westerners with bootleg reading material.  I mean why else would he have sat right next to me with a zillion extra seats open. These things happen, this is an incredibly censored country. I once saw an Oreo cookie add with the teen girls blacked out in Sharpie because, an ad showed too much of there legs. I looked through the other copies of the magazine all cookies ads blacked out. Its so crazy that there’s a “black market” for books and magazines, you know like in the states where you can buy a kidney but here its for books about open thought like the bible or Vanity fair.  I have yet to find it but ill keep you all posted on my progress. (Attention all statements about the Saudi book black market are fictitious and don’t exist){The government made me put that in there}[ HAHAHAHAHAH]

            The gentlemen in now a softer tone keeps prodding me about the book and where I got it, getting more and more nervous that soldiers in Thobes are going to come rappelling down from the ceiling, he asked me in the softest tone “may I see this book.” Fearing arrest and hoping for a lesser sentence for not resisting I handed it to him, as he thumbed through the pages I looked into his eyes and saw he was nearly in tears. At that moment all fears had left, he wasn’t the secret police, I was in no danger, and in fear I missed the fact that the tone of his voice had changed when I told him the title of the book. Now intending to have a long conversation with a total stranger in another country about a banned book that obviously had a massive emotional effect on him, I got excited. But that conversation didn’t happen. He simple looked at me and said “I read this book while in Egypt in 1989, I haven’t seen a copy since Thank you.”  He turned to a specific page and gestured to a specific passage. His worn dry hands resembled experience, openness and knowledge so much that I was so excited to read the passage I didn’t notice that he had gone until I had read it.

             This is what he pointed too:

A Certain Shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wondered through the desert for forty days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived. Rather than finding a saintly man, on entering the main room of the castle, he saw a hive of activity: tradesman came and went, people were conversing in the corner a small orchestra was playing soft music, and the table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the mans attention. The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in tow hours.

“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something,” said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. ”As you wonder around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill.”

The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.

“Well,” asked the wise man, “did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?’

The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted him.

“Then go back and observe the marvels of my world,” said the wise man. “You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house.”

Relieved the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which every thing had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen.

“But where are the drops of oil I entrusted you?” asked the wise man

             Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.

“Well there is only one piece of advice I can give you,” said the wisest of wise men.

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon”

            Taken from Paulo Coelho “The Alchemist”