I nearly drowned in the desert!

            As there is not much to do in Jeddah I decided to learn to Scuba Dive. This area of the Red Sea is know as one of Jacque Cousteau’s Favorite places to dive because of its clear seas and lush under water environment. Iv never really had a desire to spend the money to learn to dive. But given that ill be able to learn in an area that is on par with the great barrier reef, and the fact that there is nothing else to do I signed up for the class. I walked into the dive shop with my buddy Aaron, to meet the instructor.  Honest to god the instructors name is Ahab! I mean how random is that, the only guy I have every meet named Ahab and he’s a dive instructor in the desert.  He introduced himself to Aaron and I, when he shook my hand and asked my name I said, “just call me Ishmael.” Aaron proceeded to burst out in laughter until we both realized that Ahab wasn’t laughing. Upon trying to explain to him about the great American novel hoping that I didn’t offend him he responded with “hmm sound’s like a good book.” As we walked through the dive shop his employees call him captain. We tried our best not to laugh, but I really couldn’t be making this up. He then gave us our book to study and told us to meet back here in a week for our first pool dive.

             Now a week has gone by and I haven’t done much, the hotel room walls were staring to close in on me. Iv actually taken up the hobby of staring at the wallpaper and looking for shapes, just like watching the clouds except worse. Staring at the clouds spawns imagination and dreams. Staring at  wallpaper, in an Islamic country in which all the woman are covered up like ninjas, spawns weird images of woman in distorted shapes, but woman non the less. Aaron and I were up early to catch a cab for the dive shop in north Jeddah. As we stood out in front of our hotel waiting for our trusty cab driver Alam, the sun was shining and the day was looking beautiful. Now the day had been planned for Aaron and I to start off the day with our first pool dive have lunch, take a written test, and finish out the day with another pool dive. Aaron had figured that this day wouldn’t be too long or strenuous and the fact that he had worked the night before and at the start of the day had been awake for 18 hours was a non-issue.  Given that we both work in EMS Staying awake for 24 or more hours, well although not desirable wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, and I thought nothing of it.  We arrived at the dive shop to find the clouds closing in, a phone call to the owner of the pool had to be made to confirm the pool could be used. As the owner was not answering his phone the plans changed Aaron and I were to take the written test then dive if the pool were available. A little side story, we had intended to do our pool dives a week or so prior but the storm that I had previously written about had filled the pool with sand. We had finished our tests and walked out side to find the sky had not only filed with clouds but also had turned black. This is now around 10am. Captain Ahab being the good Saudi Muslim he is offered us coffee and tea, a tradition in which if you refuse they take as great insult. So far I have had a couple of incidents in which I thought I was going to pop from all the tea I had consumed. One of the oddest things about this country is that available to them is one of the most profound compilations of tea Know to man kind, most family’s upon serving tea to guests will serve three or four different types of tea. One sitting I was at had this really bitchen teakettle that had three spouts with three different types of tea. All from the same kettle, however they all drink “Lipton yellow label.” As we sat a drank our tea, the storm clouds opened up and dropped a torrential down poor of epic proportions, immediately cancelling our pool dive. Conceding to the weather we decided to stay in that part of town, which happens to remind me of Beverly hills given that the streets adjacent to the dive shop are lined with Gucci, Saks fifth avenue, Bentley and Rolls Royce. One of the things I intend to do before I leave this county is put on a suit and walk into a Ferrari dealership and pretend I’m some rich American just so they’ll let me sit in one. Lunch was simple enough walk across the street…Right? ……Wrong! In the ten minutes wading from the dive shop to the restaurant the streets had flooded up to our ankles. Assuming it was simply that one of the storm drains had clogged causing localized flooding we committed our selves to a restaurant. We sat down at the high end, prestigious, for Saudi upper class only, “Fuddruckers” and I proceeded to eat an amazing Chile cheeseburger, unfortunately with beef bacon. What is beef bacon you ask? I have NO idea! AN hour later its still raining and our localized ankle deep flood had progressed to mid calf. Back at the dive shop we attempt and failed miserable to hail a cab. Already an unknown series of event was in action, that would lead Aaron and I into an 30-hour adventure.

Aaron and I decide to walk in the, “ holy smokes IV never seen rain in which you might actually be able to swim up,” kind of rain to a major road to try and catch a cab. As we approach the main road, all the cars in the direction we need to go are in complete gridlock. No one is moving an inch and yet each and every one of them feels it necessary to honk there horn a minimum of 10 times a minute. Finding a storefront with an overhang we stop to laugh at our situation. Worst of all we still cant hail a cab, were so wet they wont let us in. After about thirty minuets of walking and stopping under the overhangs we could find, in a storm that lasted three hours we find a cab.  He’s a nice looking gentleman of a rather short stature, I half expected him to have blocks tied to his feet like the Asian kid from Indiana Joan’s. Most importantly he smiled and had a dry cab. Now I know I don’t speak Arabic, and Aaron doesn’t speak Arabic. This cab driver sure as heck doesn’t speak English, but I am definitely sure he didn’t speak Arabic or any other language for that matter. Most cab drivers wait to move their cab until they know where it is that you are going. Not this guy as soon as our butts were in the seats the cab was in motion. As we franticly attempted to tell him our destination traffic came to grinding halt. Thankfully there was a super nice guy stranded in traffic in the car next to use that was able to translate from English to Arabic to “mumble-eses.” Now it gets funny. The cab driver freaks out, throws his hands in the air, and starts yelling at the sky. We soon come to find out from our translator friend that our destination was under water. Our translator tells us the whole city is under water. This just didn’t make sense to me a city of 3.4 million people submerged after a three-hour storm. Well we were soon to find out that indeed that is what happened.

 After the cab driver was done ranting at the sky he literally reaches over me opens the door and push’s me out of his cab. The best part is that he took us three miles in the wrong direction. Being the brave explorers we are we bust out the GPS unit and decide to hoof the 11 miles back to our hotel, repressing the information that the city was under water. As we walk the streets the storm clouds open up again as if to send us an omen telling us to just stay put, but we kept telling ourselves, this was a good plan, given that all the cars were in gridlock and on foot we were actually moving. And making good time too boot! But the water is getting deeper and the number of abandon cars is rising.  Oh and the number of floating sandal’s was hitting epic proportions.

            Once we were in water chest deep and there started to be a current our plans of making it to the hotel were abandon, and we shot for the closer Ramada Inn. Upon our arrival of the prestigious five star hotel we found the entire first floor to be in water chest deep. But in true Ramada Fashion we were still meet by the concierge service. However I think the guy was just trying to be a comedian when he asked us if we would like call to call the bell hope and room service.  Wadeing through streets and the lobby was surreal; it felt like we were those people you see on CNN in some other country. We were except for the fact that the Saudi board of information refuses to let events like this go public. Pushing floating tables and couches out of the way we breeched a dark hall way that lead us to the elevator’s, comedic as he was the guy presses the up button and says, “you can wait for elevator but I’m going to take the stairs.”  Up the stairs we walked slower and slower as the water level dropped so did the amount of light. A slight feeling of fear crept up in side my chest of where exactly we were going. So far other than the jokes  the hotel manager had said nothing, we asked if the had rooms and he said “come. .Come,” and we made are way to the stairs. But in the back of my head the risk that I undertake being in another country let alone be a one that has folks in it that despise westerners is always sort of there. We climbed what seemed to be an insane amount of stairs just to get to the second story slowly in a dark, which became absolute pitch, black. What we found at the top of the stairs is something I never would have imagined I would ever see, shouldn’t have seen, and probably not many other non-Muslim westerners have seen or every will see.

Islamic law is very strict, but just like any other religion you have the die-hard religious thugs and the casual only prey when I feel guilty ones. Most Muslims are closer to the die-hard status than the casual status. The rules are vast and complex, and punishments bizarre and severe. One of the aspects of Islam that most do tend to practice is segregation of the sexes. At a very young age sons are there to protect mothers and sisters. Women can’t drive and fairly often you’ll see a 10-year-old male driving around his mother and sisters. As soon as they start school they are separated boys and girls don’t interact, you cannot just walk up to a woman in a mall or shop and talk to them. A few weeks ago I help and old lady stand up out of a cab and the driver warned me of how inappropriate it is for me to help them cause they are below us and that her husband could press charges under Islamic law and have me jailed.  Although that is an extreme situation that my Saudi friends that I trust tell me would never happen, but its possible. Should a man intend to be married, he is arranged most of the time by family, they go through a series of courtships where they discover if they are compatible with the other person. All of the segregation leads to a very odd community with abstract gender roles. As far as what it is for Saudi woman I have no idea and will probably never know. But Saudi men are strange in how they interact with each other. Often times you will see them walking through a store holding hands with interlocked fingers, men kiss close friends on the lips and I have seen others sitting on benches gently rubbing each others arms and resting there heads on each others shoulders. At first I wondered that perhaps the homosexual community was larger than what the government would ever let the rest of the world know. Iv become close friends with a few Saudis here, and at one point I felt comfortable with asking them about all the male on male affection, what Iv been told is that there truly isn’t a lot of homosexuality. Secondary to the amount of segregation and the fact that all woman are considered below men regardless of age sons look down on there mothers. But this ends up taking away all the feminine exposure; all the hugs from mom after a bad dream are gone. This need is inherent as a human being so they find it in other from somewhere else their friends that they trust end up for filing that role. Now one pint I want to make truly clear is that the woman below men aspect of this society is out dated and unnecessary, but I have never seen woman abused or treated poorly. Once their married there husbands dump thousands of dollars a month on anything they could ever need. They outfit they wear is an “ebiya” and the men see it as protecting there wives and daughters from “the evil.” When I asked what “the evil” was I was told “men.”  Unfortunately I can’t say the same for every other non-Saudi woman in the country.

What I saw when we walked up those stairs was incredibly unique, and I was able to see it only because of the flood. We were lead into a ballroom, which was being used for a wedding that morning and used as safe haven for the flood. Everywhere I looked I saw groups segregated men and woman sitting and talking. Every so often popping their heads up to look over at a group of the opposite sex and giggling. Old men sitting around candles like wise men telling story’s of there past, and passing there wisdom onto the youth, and old lady’s walking around patrolling the girls making sure they didn’t look at the boys for too long. I felt like I had walked into an article of national geographic, the images of Ethiopian village’s sitting around a fire kept creeping into my brain. Wedding tablecloths were used as blankets and the men were giving them to single woman and then children and then quickly shooed away by the old ladies as soon as the girls started giggling. It was like an abstract matting dance never before seen by western eyes.  But the most incredible thing that I was privileged to see was yet to come.

Another aspect of Islamic living is prayer. In the Islamic religion they are what is called “under the law” which means that five times a day through out the country, prayer calls ring out from every where, and if you are Muslim you are required to go to a mosque and pray, Men in one mosque and woman in another. As a non-Muslim I may not enter a mosque and cannot look in on one while they are praying. 

As the night went on it started to get colder, the hotel had very little water and no food. I had already entered into survival mode, planning an exit strategy and ideas of where to obtain food and water.  We secured our chairs and tablecloths and hunkered down for the night, as Aaron had been awake for now 26 hours he was fast asleep on a window ledge. But that small amount of fear I had earlier had risen with the water, to the point where I was considering waking up Aaron and braving the neck deep water and swift currents. Abruptly enough to take me away from my window view of a round about that was now a lake and cluttered with abandon cars, all the voices that had once been too loud for me to think had stopped and dead silence had filled the room. A solo voice then rang out through the ballroom singing, it was time for the evening prayer. A chant of thanks for the day, sung in a delicate manor with a wondering pitch. Every man and woman in the ballroom was in rows with there heads bowed towards the holy city. As the soft song of the one man brave enough to stand in front of 50 strangers and sing an elegant song of thanks and faith stopped the silence filed the room once again. As abruptly as the silence started each one of them sang the closing chant together, a short yet incredible beautiful mantra that I would have never heard if I hadn’t been stranded in that ball room because of a flood.

Soon after the prayer we were able to find an actual bed to sleep in and woke up to sunshine and travesty, as we were still five miles from our hotel. We walked into the lobby to find images that we are all familiar with, a flood ridden community on the news. Furniture strewn about large amounts of dirt on the floor, no power and people attempting to salvage what they could. We walked outside to find thousands of abandon cars clogging the streets making a cab ride impossible. We ended up walking several miles on a freeway filled with empty flood damaged cars. When the road started opening up we were able to secure a ride in the back of a truck from a non English speaking total stranger that gave us about three miles less of walking. When we finally did find a cab it was a short ride as we were only half a mile from the hotel. I wanted to go diving and the only water my fins saw was from a flood while on my back. Maybe soon ill actually get to use them on my feet while diving.