On this webpage I shall take you on a very mini-tour of Saudi dwellings so you can get an idea of how the people of Riyadh live. Due to the Saudi custom of privacy-worship and gender segregation, the way a Saudi household functions is quite different than that found nearly anywhere else in the world, especially where single male guests like myself are concerned. . . Also, you will find two separate sections on this page, one of a visit to a student-of-mine's house one afternoon, and the other one - a visit to one of my student's vacation villas, accompanied by the rest of the students in one of my classes. Let's begin with the image above. First things first: the vast majority of homes in Riyadh are actually like mini compounds, which include the house and a yard (though not necessarily the type of yard a Westerner would generally think of) all surrounded by a high concrete wall. The picture above is a good example: here we are inside the walls surrounding the house and you can see that most of the "yard" is concrete with date trees all around and several plants here and there. Saudi Arabia is a giant desert and the people here do not plant grass everywhere like what you find in the American Southwest (where most of the people there have ancestral histories in lush, green areas of the world). The Saudis have always lived in the desert and know nothing but desert living, and hence they embrace the dryness of it all and seem to quite enjoy dry yards including vegetation indigenous to arid climates as well as placing and pouring rocks and concrete. From the vantage point of this picture you can see my student's car, as well as his neighbors on the other side of the wall. His family's house is located directly behind me, and if I turned around . . . . . . this is what you'd see. A large, rectangular-ish, squarish house made of concrete - a great material for this region which suffers excrusiating heat during the summer and cool (cold) blustery desert winds during the winter. Since there are virtually no earthquakes in central Saudi Arabia, they generally do not have to worry about building collapses. This particular house is approximately 15 to 20 years old and so has a somewhat more simple design to it, built in an era when money was rushing into Saudi Arabia and the motto of the day was build! build! build! Houses of this era do tend to have a more basic design theme to them, whereas the ultra-modern homes being built in Riyadh now are obviously more complex (and lavish!) in design. (The same can be said of homes in America during the 1950s versus the 1980s/1990s). Now, for a crash course in the average home layout in Riyadh: The above is an example of Hasan's home, but from what I've seen and heard, it can be used as a general guide for many Saudi dwellings. As you see, there is a front gate in the wall surrounding the entire plot, and prominently located in the general center of the "compound" is the family home, around which is located the rest of the structures, including the oldest boy's house, the car park, the family tent for relaxing, and the servants' quarters. In other home/compounds, you might also find a smallish swimming pool. The house: Saudi homes have all the niceties and accouterments found in any home in the modern world. Although, to be honest, I have never actually seen the *inside* of a Saudi home myself since single men are almost never allowed to enter. But from what I've heard, and from what I saw in a house downtown converted into a bachelors' house for English teachers (employed by a private school downtown), this is how they're arranged. You enter at the front of the house into the foyer (entry way) and either in front of you or to your left or right there is a "visitor's room" which can be cordoned off by a door or sliding partition. In essence, this is the single-men's room and is the ONLY room of the house than any unrelated single man will *ever* see. In this room socialize the men of the house, as well as their single friends. The reason behind this is to keep the visiting single men away from the women of the family. What this translates to is that even if you are the closest of friends to a family, (i.e. the life-long friend to one of the sons of the home) you will *never* be let any further into the home as long as you are either single and unrelated to the family, or you are married and without your wife. So this means that I will never be able to see the inside of a Saudi home beyond the front visitor's room. As for the females of the home, they are free to roam around the rest of the home anywhere they like, though they may not enter the vistor's room. The houses themselves tend to be quite large and have scores of rooms with lots of space. As stated earlier, they have everything any modern home would have, including large living rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, bedrooms, as well as rooftop balconies. From what I saw of the converted English teachers' house, some of these houses are so big that unless you have a huge family (which many Saudis do have) there is a lot of potentially unused space. Next, as you can see on the little map above, next to the main house, there will be one or two smaller houses which are assigned to the eldest boys of the family. In Hasan's case, he has the large structure to the lower right which includes a huge living room, a sizable bedroom and a nice big bathroom. In his livingroom he has everything any young person could want, including a huge television with international satellite service, a nice stereo, video game console, full wall-length couches and servants from Pakistan and/or Bangladesh to serve him and his male friends with anything they like. Upon entering the living room of the house we took off our shoes and walked around either barefoot or in our socks, then we spent our time watching movies, chit chatting and relaxing while being offered various teas, coffees and sandwiches by the servants. And because the oldest boy of the house has his own house, there is no reason for him to bring his single male friends into the family house, so the gender segregation thing is not an issue. Also, the parents and other children of the house are not allowed to enter the oldest son's house, so he has absolute privacy and can do virtually *anything* he likes therein. Also, if you look at the layout images above, you'll see that the servants' quarters are located to the left of the house. In Hasan's case, the servants quarters are split in half and the second oldest boy has his own medium-ish sized private bedroom and livingroom where he brings his friends. The other side of the structure is where the servants stay, i.e., the people who wait on the family hand and foot, clean the house/yard, and the driver(s) of the family (for the wife and the daughters). Perhaps you're thinking right now, "Oh, this all seems way too lavish... there's no way this could be the "average" set up!" Well, the fact is, Riyadh is the seat of the Saudi royal family. "Well... big deal!" you might be thinking. The thing is that the first modern Saudi King (in the 1930s) had 400 wives and produced A LOT of children. Yes, that's 4-0-0 wives. Eventually there would be born about 6000 princess and princesses and each of those princes and princesses had huge families of their own (all supported by oil money, which is fully owned by the Saudi royal family) and now there's an exploding, branching tree of Saudi royalty. (Many of my school students are the children of princes and princesses.) And even if you're not Saudi royalty directly, you can easily marry into the family and you have an instant "in". So, as far as the newer homes are concerned, in the suburbs of Riyadh, Hasan's house is quite common. (Downtown, the lots of the homes are a bit smaller and compact.) The above two pictures show another important aspect of Saudi life: the family tent. Harkening back to the days of yore when most people lived in the desert (20 to 40 years ago), the family tent has been made an institution of modern day Saudi life. In the old days, many Saudis were migratory - following their herds of camels - and used their tents not so dissimilarly from how the Native Americans used teepees. While the materials used to build the tents and the luxuries included therein may have changed over the last generation or two, the overall design appears to have remained constant: four walls, a vaulted roof, and special family/clan based designs on the interior and exterior. As you can see in the above image, this tent comes comeplete with electric lighting, airconditioning and a gas stove - all the things a modern day Arabian would need to spend a nice evening with his family or friends. Unlike the tents still found in the desert, however, this one is fixed into place and functions as a stationary den. Therefore there shan't be any camel chasing with these electrified and airconditioned models. . . So that's the basic set up of a Saudi home in Riyadh. Big house, many rooms, servants's quarters and a giant wall surrounding it all.

And now, as per usual, here are a few random pictures I fished out of the depths of my harddrive that have no real webpage home of their own, but should be shown nevertheless. So here they are. And since they generally fall under the "Saudi Lifestyle" banner, I figured this particular webpage would be a great place to stick 'em! The above is what the Saudis call and "istaraha", which perhaps would be translated into English as a "weekend getaway" or a "private desert villa". It's a place where friends and family members go either on the weekend or during the week to relax and unwind and to just detatch from the rest of the outside world. I was invited to this particular "istaraha" by one of the princes in my class, so that I could enjoy a Saudi style evening out with friends. (Let's refer to this prince as "Majed".) In this case, all the attendees were members of the class and we arranged to meet outside of Riyadh in a small oasis town on a Thursday night (ie, the equivalent of a Saturday weekend night in the West). I was picked up by two of my students, and we drove out to this town on one of the nice highways leading out of Riyadh, which took us just under an hour to get to. Upon arriving into the small town, we drove down a small, partially paved dirt road which was lined periodically with walled residents and other "istaraha". Like virtually all Saudi residential and recreational structures, this "istaraha" had a tall wall around it. To get inside the mini-compound, one of the hired assistants (Pakistani, Indian and/or Bangladeshi) rolled the gate open and we drove inside and were greeted graciously by our host, Prince Majed, who was dressed in a long black neck-to-toe robe and was wearing the traditional red-and-white Saudi draping head covering called a "shamal". As you can see in the above diagram, we entered through the wall into the parking area, then got out of the car and walked through the main rectangular structure, out into the main area of the "istaraha." Located beside the main building (which was itself perhaps 15 feet / 4.5 meters wide) was the "dakka" or terrace, which was a flat octagonally shapped sitting area covered with carpet and lined with cushions and arm rests on its 2 foot / 60 cm tall walls. The "dakka" has a diameter of about 9 to 10 feet (3 meters) and is the place where everyone sits in a big circle chitchatting, drinking tea and eating little snacks. It's the social center of the "istaraha" and is the place where all guests are first ushered into upon arriving. Since this was my first occasion to socialize with Saudis outside the classroom, I quickly found out that there were many rituals which I would have to quickly learn if I didn't want to look like a big western freak! This is how the "dakka" works: Upon walking into the dakka you first take your shoes off on the little step on the ledge leading up to the dakka, facing the istaraha entertainment room. Then, once your shoes are off, you step up into the dakka and walk to the right and begin greeting anyone already in the dakka. If no one is already there, you just sit down and relax, but if someone is already sitting in the dakka, they stand up before you and you say, "As-salaam alay-kum" ("peace be upon you") to which they would respond "as-salaam" (peace) or "wa-lay-kum as-salaam" ("and upon you may there be peace"). Then they quickly ask, "Kaif hal-ak?" ("How's your health?" lit: "how health-your"?) to which you reply, "Kwayyis, al-hamdu l-illah" ("Good, the thanks (be) to God"). During this, everyon is wearing their traditional full length robes ("thobe"), which during fall and winter are often black, dark khaki or dark blue or green, and they are also either wearing the traditional red-and-white "shamall" (headwrap) or the standard-issue white headwrap called a "ghutra". Also during the greetings, everyone is kissing each other on the cheeks (a la Euro style) and holding each other's hands. (Keep in mind, this is MEN only.) And, if there is an elder male, or a male head of the household is present, the younger men kiss him either on the forehead or on the top of his head to show respect. Also, depending upon how close you are to one another, you may put your foreheads together and/or touch noses. As for me, I was the freaked out western spazz so I just stood there shaking everyone's hands, which was particularly odd for Majed's little brothers who had no idea whatsoever what to do with me! "Should I kiss the tall white guy, or should I just stare at him like he's some intergalactic space alien?!?" ;-} In any case, once you go right around the circle and complete your greetings, you choose a space along the small wall and sit down on the carpet next to one of the armrests lining the parameter of the dakka and just shoot the breeze with everyone. For me the whole experience was really intersting because up to that point I had only ever seen my students wearing military uniforms at school, without any head coverings, and to suddenly see all my students wearing long gowns with their hair covered was a bit disorienting at first! I could barely recognize anyone and when I finally did recognize them I was like, "Good God, that's you?!?" :-) (Above: this is the soccer field located within the walls of the "istaraha" and those are my students playing, obviously having changed out of their traditional wear.) So anyways. . . back to the "dakka" experience. Once the greetings are over, you sit down and start talking to everyone, and this is where the rituals start kicking in. Since Saudi Arabia possesses a very hierarchical social structure (from God to the King to the princes to the Saudis nationals to the other regional Arabs, etc.) it also reasons that they should organize themselves according to one's age, obviously with the eldest being at the top and the youngest being toward the bottom. This means that during these male-only social gatherings, the youngest boy of the family (actually, usually, the youngest teenager of the family and not the children) is given the responsibility to serve everyone. This means that the boy sits at the edge of the "dakka" and keeps a steady eye on everyone's tea and coffee, always refilling any empty glasses as well as serving dates and other snacks to everyone. The first treats to be served are sweet dates and Arabian coffee. The Arabian coffee is extremely bitter and comes in a tiny little handle-less cup that you must accept from the boy-host with your right hand and not your left. (The left hand is the one that people use "in the restroom.") Then, once the coffee is drunk and the dates are eaten, tea is served in little glass mini-mugs (about 3 inches / 6 cm tall) with little handles on them. We were served regular light brown "shai" as well as a tasty yellow mint tea called "zenjibeel". However, one never eats the sweet dates with the tea since both are sweetened, and to the Saudis that would just be too much sugar at once, so they keep the dates with the coffee, and the teas separate. Then, after the teas were served, the boy-host served us warm spiced milk (ginger and cinnamon?) in little glass cups. All of it was extremely tasty! Lastly, as we sat around drinking our tea and milk, the boy-host pulled out this large, portable silver and gold incense burner (about a foot / 30 cm tall), which had four thick legs connected at four points along its midsection and was topped by an ornamented, metallic bowl-like "pan" in which burned several glowing pieces of desert wood. The boy then opened up a small bag of incense wood and placed several pieces onto the glowing embers and then passed it around. Everyone slowly passed the incense holder around the circle and as they held it, they wafted the scent into their head coverings and onto their robes. Me, being the globe trotting idiot that I am thought that I was supposed to inhale it, or at least try to smoke it, and nearly choked to death to everyone's amusement. Alas, I was properly instructed what to do with it, and therefore had no more problems with it for the rest of the evening! ;-} And, to my delight, Prince Majed even gave me a little paper bag of the incense to take home with me. This was particularly special since 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of this rare Indian/Cambodian root costs around $2,000. Yep, that's right, $2,000. Needless to say, I was very honored!

We hung out and chatted in the "dakka" circle for a while and then many of my students got up and changed out of their long white robes into Western sporting clothes and ran out to Prince Majed's soccer field in the other half of the "istaraha" villa. Since I play soccer about as well George Bush, Jr. uses big words, I decided to stay on the sidelines and just watch. One of my students, Abdulrahman (pronounce the "h"!) - wearing a long dark colored thobe (robe) came up to me and asked if I'd like to walk around the istaraha and chat, so I said "sure!" and he gave me a tour of the whole place. He showed me the animal pens where there were emus, peacocks, sheep, and a slew of other animals. As we walked, he told me a story he had from when he was in the United States a few years ago: since he and his family are Muslim, when they travel in the United States, eating meat becomes very difficult because a Muslim is only supposed to eat meat from an animal which has been killed by slicing open its neck and hanging it and letting the blood drain completely from body, while proclaiming the name of God during the process. They had gone to a farm to purchase a goat to eat, so the farmer took one of the animals and put it next to a wall, pulled out his gun and shot it dead in the head and said, "Welp, there's yer goat, folks!" to which Abdulrahman and his family gasped in horror! "Quick, rope up and animal and drain its blood and proclaim God's name!" the father yelled! So, over they ran and managed to "salvage" the animal, without it being a total loss. Chalk one up for a bilateral cultural miscommunication. . . So we exchanged little anecdotes about our two cultures and enjoyed learning about one another's people and traditions. Above image: as you can see in the above image this is a big room, which is known as " the men's only prayer and dinner room." And, as its name implies, it is used largely for dining and praying. The last prayer of the day (of 5 prayers) was around 7 p.m. so when the time came, all my students (after having changed back into their traditional Saudi robes) excused themselves from me for a moment and went en masse into the prayer room and did their communal prayer toward Mecca in the west for several minutes. (I shall describe a Muslim prayer in depth in a later webpage.) Then, about half an our after prayer, we were all called into the prayer/dining room for dinner where we were greated by a magnificent feast! In the middle of the room were two large plastic coverings sprawled out over the floor on top of which was an amazing amount of food, around which we sat, in two groups. In the center of each circle was a giant platter of rice (and when I say giant, I'm talking about hold-your-arms-out-in-a-big-circle and-bigger-than-that giant) and on top of the rice was a FULL GOAT resting cooked on its back with its legs sticking straight up, covered by a large, thin sheath of pita bread! I thought, "My, isn't this interesting!" and sat down in the circle with everyone else. Just then, one of my students came through the main door of the dining room with a long, sharp knife and thrust it into the side of the goat and started cutting away! Huge hunks of flesh fell off the animal into the rice and it was officially time to feast! As per Saudi tradition, everyone sits around the food in a big circle in a semi-kneeling position, with their left leg tucked under behind them and their right leg up (foot on the floor) so that they can use their knee as an armrest of sorts. (Keep in mind, shoes are taken off at the entrance of the dining room, so you don't have dirty shoes and scuff marks all over the floor where eveyrone's eating.) Once you're in proper eating position, it's time to dig in! Since Saudis don't eat with silverware (unless their eating soup), you simply do all your cutting, scouping and eating with your hands, which is more like tearing and shoveling. One of my students offered me a knife and fork to eat with but I said "No way!" and partook in the communcal experience by eating with my hands as well! And how do you eat a whole goat on a bed of rice with just your hands? Not carefully, and not without a giant mess everywhere - especially for the uninitiated like myself! We all dug our hands into the goat and ripped away hunks of flesh that we then dropped onto the mounds of rice before each of us. And just like eating any random finger food in the West, you just pick up the meat with your fingers and pop it in your mouth (in torn, bite size pieces). The rice, however, was a bit more difficult. Having lived in Japan for the previous two years I thought, "Alright, if this were starchy, sticky rice, this wouldn't be such a chore," however, since the rice was fluffy, yellow Saudi-style rice which falls apart piece by piece, I realized I was up against something huge here. So I just watched and waited to see how everyone else was eating before I tried it myself. As I watched, I saw what looked like everyone just grabbing a handful of rice, squeezing it into a big ball and simply hurling it into their mouths. I tried this myself, and I basically wound up with rice all over my face and a giant pile of rice on the plastic foodmat before me. "What a disaster!" I thought! But as I continued to observe everyone, I noticed that they were taking small handfulls of rice, compressing it into loose little balls (as well as loose rice can be shaped into a ball) and found that there was a special way to put the rice into your mouth without spilling everywhere: bring your first four fingers together and cup your hand slightly (as if you're putting on a bracelet) and then use your thumb as a small pushing mechanism to guide the food off your fingers straight into your mouth. After a few tries, the process worked like a charm and I was no longer spilling food all over the place! SCORE! After about 15 or 20 minutes of constant eating, a la Saudi style, dinner was unspokenly declared over and everyone got up together and left the room. I was like, "Um... hello? Where is everyone going? We haven't finished off the goat yet!" Alas, you're not supposed to eat everything before you since if you did, the women of the house wouldn't have anything to eat (although there were no women present on this occasion); and if you find that you have extra food left over after dinner, you're supposed to give it to the local poor families. So, if you actually did eat everything on your plate, noone else would be able to eat! (Very different from the American custom of being expected to eat everything on your plate, which is something I'm still having trouble with here mentally, since in Saudi Arabia I always feel guilty if there's food left in front of me. It's as if I feel like I'm wasting it.) So anyways, dinner was suddenly over and everyone got up together and went over to the large bathroom in the main building of the "istaraha" and washed up with soap and water, cleaning their hands and their forearms as well as rinsing and washing out their mouths. (The Saudis pay a bit more attention to issues of personal hygiene, I have found, than do the Europeans or North Americans overall. . . ('tis just an observation, don't be offended.)) [God, it's the third week of Ramadan and I'm sitting here at my computer at school at 1:20p.m. starving to death thinking about all this food since I've been fasting all day long and can't eat until sundown. C'mon sun, hurry up and set already!] So, as stated above, dinner was over and everyone vacated the dining room, washed up, and then moved into the entertainment room, which is a part of the main building on the istaraha. As seen below, the over all accomodation in the room was rather simple. In the carpeted room there were couches lining the entire length of all four walls, with curtains on the windows to match. In front of the couches stood little matching color "end tables" on which you rest the tea and coffee that the boy-servant has been pouring for you the whole time. To the left of the image was a TV/Stereo entertainment system where many guys were huddled around watching a soccer game that was taking place in the King Fahad Stadium located right next to Camp VinnellArabia (where I live) on the outskirts of Riyadh. To the right of the image were other of my students sitting in a small circle on the floor playing card games. Since alcohol is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia there was none to be found and I was rather impressed by the fact that a large group of men can get together and have a fun time without needing to get blitzed out of their minds. (Although from what I hear, alcohol is quite common in Saudi Arabia, just as illegal drugs are common everywhere else in the world.) [Man am I hungry right now. . .]

So after hanging out with everyone for several hours and digesting the evening's dinner, the two students I drove to the istaraha with decided to call it a night and I returned to Riyadh with them. So I said my good-byes to everyone, told them all to do their homework and that I would see them in the morning! Above image: oh yeah, I was just typing away when I looked at the picture and thought, "Hmm. . . perhaps not everyone looking at this picture will think that what my students are wearing is particularly "normal", as I now do, so here's a small explanation: the white robe worn by the student on the left is a "thobe" (robe) and the red headcovering is called a "shamal", but if it were white, it would be called a "ghutra". In the more conservative regions of Saudi Arabia, like Riyadh, all Saudi men are expected to wear either their "shamal" or "ghutra", although, if you're in a more "liberal" city like Jeddah on the Red Sea or Dammam on the Arabian/Persian Gulf then it's not generally expected. In any case, on the "shamal" you see what look like two black ropes, those are called "iqal". ("q" in Arabic is actually a throaty "k".) And as you see, nobody is wearing shoes inside the room. On the left, you see one of my students wearing the triditional Saudi outfit. Next to him is another student who is wearing a rob-like blanket to keep him warm, since it was getting a little bit nippy outside that evening. To the right of him you see a student of mine wearing a dark, winter-color thobe. To his right you see the two students who drove me to the istaraha, who are wearing the Western clothes they picked me up in. They were certainly the exception as everyone else in attendance (excluding me) was wearing traditional Saudi clothing. However, it's just a matter of time before I buy one of the thobes myself and attempt to try out the local look, eventhough I'm sure I'll wind up looking like a big freak in the process! Below: and now, for a totally random picture which has no relation to anything else on this page. The following picture was taken about two months ago one evening when I went out to dinner with one of my co-workers, his friend, and his friend's friend. My coworker Jeff is on the left (from New York), his friend John is next to him (from Connecticut), with John's friend Bandar to the far right. I think this picture turned out particularly well actually! Unfortunately, so did the guy who ran the restaurant who told me to put my camera away. (I tell ya, these people are such camera phobes!) In any case, in the picture you can see the typical circular seating area "dakka" with the arm rests and the three of them sitting on the floor with their shoes off. On the right you can see Bandar pouring tea for us out of a traditional Saudi tea pot (more Saudi hospitality for ya!) and in front of Bandar you can see a giant bong. Worry not, drugs are illegal in Saudi Arabia so this bong is not used for getting high, (at least not in these public restaurant areas) but rather, it's used for smoking dried fruit. Yep. In fact, smoking dried fruit is the specialty of this public istaraha and people come from all around to partake in the activity and this place is quite famous. In addition to the "dakka", the above image shows a traditional night out on the town (for men only). After smoking up a storm and watching satellite TV (the TV was behind me), you then order dinner, which usually consists of a giant, arms-sized plate of rice with lamb and/or chicken and then a bunch of side dishes like Lebanese salad, hummus, taboulah, and other regional specialties. And that, my friends, is all I have to say on this webpage! Back / Next Links Megasite / Saudi Links