The Flight

August 6, 2010


We flew Business Class, thanks to Aramco. It was so sweet. We felt like kids in a candy store. Should we drink the orange juice or the champagne? Oh, we can have both and as much as we want? Our over the top flight attendant was almost too attentive, waking us for the next course of the two hour meal delivery.

Arriving in the Kingdom, I felt conspicuously out of place with all the different types of robes, gowns, burkas, abayas, thobes, and head coverings. Each color of head covering depicts Muslims from various tribes or parts of the world. The women were dressed in full black abayas with only their eyes exposed. Looking around the airport I am sure I must have made some cultural errors, like when I glared, frowning at one Saudi attendant who was smoking a cigarette at his work station. Or looking at men in the eyes and smiling. It’s hard not to make eye-contact and maintain sober face. The immigration process was relatively painless; fingerprints, photos, luggage retrieval of 9 pieces-we were helped by local attendants for 2 riyal a bag = .50 cents. We met up with about 10 other families who had also arrived and needed to be processed. Warmly greeted by the head of the school and handed homemade cookies by his wife was comforting. Once we were escorted out of the airport we arrived at our new townhouse about 1:00 am. Our first, among many of the welcome committee- Jonathan- went over the essential, including the local prayer times. Phil and I glanced at each other wearily thinking why would we need the prayer times? Was Jonathan serious about this? Were we expected to observe the call to prayer? Two days later we were to find out the significance. Too excited to sleep we unpacked most of our boxes. I was really looking for those nice, new, soft sheets I had purchased. Nirvana. I found the new bamboo soft sheets. Our house is sparsely furnished, but contains the essentials.