Oh I forgot to Tell You! Check THIS out ...

Friday 19th February 2010
Now then – there are one or two things I'd like to put in this blog today. And these are things that, for some reason or other, I forgot to put in earlier editions. Call it forgetfulness, call it what you like but anyway HERE are a few things that, on this penultimate day here in Saudi Arabia, I REALLY should put down in writing.

The first of these will make you laugh. Well, I wasn't laughing too much MYSELF at the time, but if you had witnessed it as my DutchBrit colleague did then it is not something you can forget.

It involves a drink they call here “laban”. And what IS this, “laban”, I hear you ask. Well it is basically a soured yoghurt-milk drink. Do you know what the “Activia” yoghurt-milk drink is? Well, laban is a bit like that. You don't pour it on your cereal and you certainly DON'T put it in your cup of tea or coffee. It is for drinking only. I suppose there could be fruity versions if you don't like the taste of the stuff on its own. Oh, and it comes in rather small bottles. The basic recipe is surprisingly basic and you can see it here http://www.answers.com/topic/laban-drink

I had never tried it much before here, but now I really like it. But there is something to know about it – the way to open it. What you need to do is (1) give the bottle a shake, (2) unscrew the lid, and (3) peel off the silver foil lid. (1), (2) and (3) in THAT order – got it?

Now you're scratching your head and wondering what on earth I'm doing reminding you of something you may never have had in your life. Well, it was on this day, shortly before the summer holidays last year, when I myself got the sequence hopelessly wrong with disastrous and comical results.

How or why I did it I will never know. There I was. It was just after lunchtime and always at lunchtime in the hospital cafeteria I got two bottles of laban – one for lunchtime itself and the second one for later. I had this second bottle now.

I had to prepare a bit because I had this summer course class to do one lesson for. It wasn't originally my class, but the teacher who WAS supposed to do it had wimped off with the pathetic excuse of having a stomach bug through some dodgy meal last night out on the town. Total rubbish if you ask me – he just couldn't be bothered to do this class today. So I was sitting at my desk thinking what to do and shuffling a few papers round getting things together. Hmm, I thought, let's have that laban now. So I got it, shook the bottle, unscrewed the lid and peeled off the foil lid.

Then for some reason I put that bottle down on the desk to my right without drinking it. Perhaps I'd had a flash of inspiration or got distracted or something – I don't remember. And then in another moment later I decided I wanted to drink it. I picked up the bottle and gave it a GOOD SHAKE.

NO LID!! The stuff went ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE – mostly all over me. Ohh, it was all over my glasses and face and I had well-splattered myself all down my grey shirt. Some had gone on my bag and some on the floor and some splats had even gone behind me and onto the floor behind me!!

Oh My GOD, I thought, and sat there for a moment. What the HELL did I just do? There was laughter from behind me, and the DutchBrit who was acting Head of Department during that summer period had seen it all. He had looked up JUST at the very moment I had shaken this stuff all over myself.

SHIT! I had this lesson in about 20 minutes time! Had to try clean myself up. I had tissues from somewhere and began the mopping-up process. Cleaned face and glasses first. Didn't bother about the floor. Dabbed the splats off my bag. Some laban had splatted over some grammar books and resource material folders that were open on my desk and so I made sure to clean those up too. Hoped it wouldn't end up too sticky.

Now to my shirt. It was THIS that had suffered the most, and the shirt in question was NOT a cotton shirt which was easily cleanable. Even when I tried to wipe up and soak up the blobs and splats of laban with copious amounts of tissue, the fatty stains were STILL THERE.

I was not doing well. Time was ticking away to the start of the lesson upstairs. Would I be able to go up there and stand there with a shirt with laban splat marks all over it. Well, the whiteness of the laban had gone but the dark marks were all over me. I did not much know what to do.

Well, I had to go do the lesson. The department secretary suggested I go borrow a jacket to cover this. It was either this or send the other available colleague up in my place. First I thought THAT was what I had to do, and he didn't look pleased.

Then he suggested I borrow his denim shirt-jacket. YES! I was SAVED! It just about fitted me, so on it went and I collected my pens, books and papers and up to the lesson I went. The shirt was covered up and I was REPRIEVED!

The students asked me why I was wearing this jacket and I did tell them. Not sure if they understood.

Now I make GOOD SURE that when I SHAKE a bottle of ANYTHING that I have one finger over the lid JUST IN CASE …

OK, that is the first thing to tell you. The second thing happened, I think, just before Christmas. Or maybe just after – I don't remember for sure, but it was when I had to go down to the Rashid Mall once again to the boys at Mobily to pay for another internet month (or maybe to pay AGAIN cos I'd run out or something).

I suppose I'd finished in Mobily because I was upstairs in the coffee bar I always go to there. It is called, “Seattle's Best”, in the Rashid Mall by the way. Nice coffee and I used to enjoy the caramel cakes till they stopped having them. Anyway, they have nice coffee and some nice and VERY comfortable chairs in the corner which are PERFECT for lazing around in for a while.

Prayer time came around. What normally happens during prayer times here is that you cannot buy anything but they don't normally insist you get out. You CAN stay sitting there. So although nobody is there working and serving customers, if you are already INSIDE, you can STAY INSIDE. If you want to leave, you can also do so or in shops and supermarkets you have to wait until they open up again, ie, a lock-in situation. It varies slightly from place to place but this is generally the way here.

Anyway, prayer time was here, the usual wailing sounds of the Call To Prayer filled the shopping mall and the lights went off in this coffee bar. I remained sitting there as I always do as did a number of other Saudis. I was sitting in the back of the coffee bar but there were many Saudis sitting together talking and drinking in the chairs at the front.

As I was sitting there minding my own business and watching people go by, I saw one or two Saudi policemen going by. Funny, I thought, what are THEY doing here?

Now, I had heard that in Rashid Mall there ARE often 'muttawah' who roam around at prayer times making sure places are closed and that Muslims get off their behinds and get IN to the mosques and PRAY! Yes, shock, horror, probe! Even HERE they do not RUSH into the mosque at the moment of the Call! I do not know how it works at prayer times – maybe they do not have to go EXACTLY at Prayer Time moment but can go a little while later. Well, you do not EVER see them rushing en-masse to the mosques so maybe there is some 'leeway' involved. But they DO have to go sometime though it can be a matter of group or peer pressure at times.

So there were policemen going around which I thought strange. And then to my right and outside the coffee bar a red-checked “ghutra” wearing man came by. He didn't have a particularly long beard. He stopped by the first two Saudis sitting there, spoke to them a bit and then they got up to go. He then moved on down to the second table and spoke to the second lot of Saudis there. THAT discussion proved to be longer and they needed much more “persuasion” but eventually then went too.

So only I was left it seemed – sitting there, lights out drinking my coffee and wondering what was to happen next. And then at the entrance to this coffee bar I saw a policeman come and stand there looking in my direction. I did not catch his eye though I knew he was there and I did not move either. And then the muttawah man came in.

Now, I have heard much of these muttawah and how nasty they are. There are stories galore online about them in years gone by of how they go about with their bamboo canes beating women in the streets for showing “too much”. Our HoD told a story once of a time 30 years ago (I think he said) when an American couple he knew were out and about in town in the marketplace somewhere and how, at prayer time, they had been chased out by a mutawah who followed them whipping their heels with his bamboo cane as they went.

So there I am sitting there and in comes the mutawah. “Hello, how are you?”, he started. “What nationality are you?”, to which I replied I was an Englishman. He then went on to explain that at prayer times people are not permitted to sit in or wait in coffee bars or shops because that was “the Saudi culture”.

Well, obviously he wanted me to leave, and so I duly went out with my unfinished coffee and went to sit on the benches outside the coffee bar to drink up. Another mutawah man was still arguing with one more Saudi pair who were still sitting inside. Eventually they DID leave and I saw their rather sheepish faces as they came out “defeated”.

“In days gone by you'd have had a bamboo cane in your face!”, I was told later back at college by more knowledgeable colleagues. Well, I was quite glad of that!

So what and who are the mutawah? Well, basically they are the “religious police” here. Officially they are the “Department of Vice and Virtue ” and so their task is to make sure people are “doing the right thing” I suppose.

They are not “police” as such and do not have the power of arrest by themselves. This is why they always go around WITH the Saudi police. But here's the thing – the police are only necessary for FOREIGNERS because the Saudis themselves treat them with great respect. And the fact that FIRST they clear out the Saudis, then they go away and come BACK with the police for the foreigners just shows you what little they can do.

As I said, they used to be REALLY nasty pieces of work. But recently, I am told, they have been told that they have to “be nice to people”. Maybe the Saudi hierarchy are aware that their reputation is not a good one and want to do something about it. Or maybe, more truthfully, the days of the mutawah are numbered in Saudi Arabia.

I do not think they have mutawah in other Arab countries though I may be wrong. On this website http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Mutawa they define mutawah as those whose job it is to keep people to a “strict code of conduct” which, of course, means in accordance with Islamic law.

However – here's a strange thing – in the soldier boy class days, they used the word 'mutawah' in a different way. One man in the other military class was termed a 'mutawah' although clearly he was not one though did have some kind of authoritative presence. And indeed, one way to describe another DIFFERENT student was to call HIM a 'mutawah' because he was bearded (though not a long beard at all!). So perhaps the term, “muttawah”, means something along the lines of “the pure one” since it is definitely encouraged for Muslims to grow beards. Some kind of sign of 'manliness' I think.

So THAT was my one and only encounter with mutawa in Saudi Arabia. Well, you see around many long straggly-bearded men who may or may not be genuine mutawah. Around the compound there WERE some once, and on that day the hospital cafeteria cash tills “magically” had signs directing men to Till A and women to Till B. But the signs disappeared a few days later.

Their strictness has been tempered these days. It may turn out to be, in many MANY years in the future, that there will NOT BE mutawah in this country any more. Or maybe only in the bigger cities like Riyadh or Jeddah. What authority do they have these days? Well, THAT is unclear, though what IS clear is that they are not what they used to be. And that is ONLY a good thing!

OK, that's the end of that. Well, I just wanted to tell you about those two incidents. Two things I felt could NOT be left out of the blog since they are important.

Oh, one more thing on the mutawah day. I came of the Rashid Mall with my shopping to the place where I normally wait for the taxi. And something new HERE! The POLICE were here! Yes, a police car drew up and shooed away all the taxis that were waiting there. Well, strictly speaking that spot is not for taxis or, indeed, for ANY cars to be waiting in. I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to take my taxi or that I would be reprimanded for waiting here for a taxi or even that the taxi driver would have problems. Ah, but LUCKILY as my taxi came, the police were a little way further up hassling a taxi driver there. So I quickly got in and we drove off before they could see us!

Two things in ONE DAY I'd not seen before – mutawah AND police!