CULTURE
Saudi Arabia: The Blog
By Stump Connolly and Maps Apley
PART THREE: Into the Desert
Maps
Monday, October 07, 2002
10:29:03 PM
I knew there was a reason we brought Virginia along. She’d passed herself off as Prince Bandar’s wife’s closest friend -- and an honored guest at a 1988 bin Laden wedding. But so far we’ve seen none of her influence. More often than not, she's been more interested in shopping than making our doc until this week she earned her keep.
While we went off to shoot the Saudi Aramco oil facilities, Virginia stayed behind in Riyadh – running up $500 in chauffeur bills and hotel calls – but also arranging a visit to the desert home of Al Murrah leader Nassar Al Alroq.
Al Alroq, 76, was in Riyadh visiting his good friend King Fahd. After a tense breakfast with Bill, he agreed to guide us to his village in the desert, Taweelah, otherwise known as “The Deep Well.” His only condition was that we take no pictures of the women and not make him into another caricature of what westerners think of as Arab chieftains.
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Stump
Monday, October 07, 2002
10:02:53 AM
Somewhere in The Desert
Our trip to the desert got off to a great start. Bill knocked over a huge canister of tea water onto the prayer rug of a cantina we stopped in at on our way down there. The proprietor gasped, but quickly assured us it was "no problem" -- even as three customers raced for towels to clean up the mess.
Our guide into the desert was Nassar Al Alroq, a former general in the Saudi National Guard, who just happened to be in Riyadh calling on King Fahd to wish him well after his operation in Switzerland.
Nassar took us 370 kilometers east into The Rub Al Khali – also known as “The Empty Quarter” -- following a succession of back roads that eventually turned into 14 kilometers of hard sand. Our destination was Taweelah, a small village of 500 people named for a deep well that Al Alroq’s tribe dug 50 years ago to service their own and other Al Murrah families in the desert.
We arrived just as the sun was going down. Bill,
Greg and Joel made a beeline for the camel herd on the horizon -- what's up
with these guys?
Mitch and I followed our guide to a campfire high atop a dune where a lone
bedu was making tea. With the sun setting in the backdrop, we stood transfixed
as the other members of the tribe arrived, kissed and took their seats silently
around the blaze.
I
felt at that moment that I was watching Mitch's dream come true. At the call
of the Prayer Hour, the group fell into line and bowed to Mecca in the shimmering
dusk. Mahood, the camel tender, brought fresh camel milk to our side. A newly
slaughtered sheep was basted on the fireside and we spent the evening gorging
on lamb, rice, watermelon and tea, deeply engaged in the meaning of the Quaran.
When bedtime came, the bedu took us to another fresh dune about 100 yards away, our path illuminated by the lights of the jeeps and campers in the tribe. All the stars of the southern hemisphere spread across the sky. The Milky Way was a chalky mass of light and old familiar constellations one recalls from scout days -- The North Star, Orion, Cassiopia and The Dippers, big and small -- shone like pristine jewels in the night. The stars were like sequins stitched across the dome of the night with endless darkness on all sides. [I know this because, lacking a blanket and bracing myself against the freezing cold wind, I started making up ways of describing them to get me through until dawn.]
The next morning, we joined Nassar and his brothers, Jaber and Abdulhadi, and about a dozen other elders and children for breakfast in the village. Bill and Jaber spoke about September 11 and the Saudi friendship for Americans. All of the brothers have spent considerable time in the States. Nassar for three years in Seattle, Jaber at UCLA and Abdulhadi all over.
They took us into their own school for boys and over to the well after which the town is named where a water truck was filling up to take a load to a nearby village. We returned to the common room for lunch -- chicken and rice.
Nassar looked at some of the footage to be sure we did not, as agreed, shoot any of the women in the village; but he quickly realized he could not scan it all. "In the end, I must trust you not to show us in a bad light," he said.
I'm sure Mitch will have much to say on this because, as quick as we came, we went. And we are off to Jeddah tomorrow.
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Bruce
Monday, October 07, 2002
3:54:04 PM
Block that metaphor
"like pristine jewels in the night".... "like sequins stitched across the dome of the sky". Somebody get that bottle of camel milk out of Stump’s hands.
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Maps
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
1:21:49 AM
Highlights of the Rub Al-Khali
The
day began with some stand-ups with Bill back at Diryadh then we piled into
two Ford Excursions to make the five-hour trip into the desert.
Because of the late start, I had only one question: would we make it by sunset for “the golden hour” shot? So much of the trip consisted of egging on Abdullah, our driver, to go faster. This truly pleased him since he seemed to take particular delight in hammering the accelerator over 120 kph, at which point Ford has installed a beeper warning system that goes “ding, ding, ding” until you ease off.
Since Abdullah rarely dropped below 150 kph on the two-lane black top, Joel and Greg started calling this the journey to “ding, ding, ding.”
Once we arrived, it was a mad dash for the dunes. The truck I was in got stuck in a hill of sand before leaving the village, but I looked up and saw Stump hurling himself into the back of one of the tribesmen’s Toyota pickups with about 9 local kids, so I hurled myself in after them.
Stump was hell bent on shooting the other Ford making it's way into the desert; I was just hanging on for dear life. We must've been going 75 mph over the rough sand and rock, and every bump was like an amusement park ride.
Stump's already written about the campfire at the top of the dune. It really was amazing. By the time we were shooting, the sun was maybe 6 degrees off the horizon and big and orange. Coffee pots heating water over hot coals; it left me speechless.
Then there was the slaying of the goat and the fellowship around the fire. I was handed a piece of goat's liver as soon as I sat down that was as big as my fist done just the way I like it, charred and sandy. Then came the camel's milk. Fresh and foamy. Greg likened it to the steamed milk you get out of a cappuccino machine, which is pretty close if you can get past the idea it came out of a camel.
Then
came the main course, a freshly killed lamb over rice. Fruit for desert and
tea cups every time you turned around. As the night progressed, we all had
interactions with various members of the tribe. My favorite was a lesson in
Arabic from the boys, we've got lots of pictures to post.
We made our camp on a nearby dune and turned in early as we had to wake up by 4:40 am to catch the sunrise. The stars truly were like jewels in the night. I saw 4 shooting stars, and heard about at least two more. There's something magical about laying on a sand dune and drifting off to sleep.
Around 2:30 am I realized that I'd made several errors from a planning standpoint. First: it really does get freezing cold at night. Despite warnings from both Joel and Virginia, I laid my head down to sleep without a blanket. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Acknowledging my newbie error, I arose and parked myself in the front seat of the car until Greg woke me up getting the gear out at 4:45.
The sunrise shots were terrific. I think Greg got the sun coming up three times, each over a different dune.
We had breakfast in the village and then went out to do more stand-ups with Bill, but this time in front of the camels of the Al Murrah. It took a while thundering over the bumpy terrain, but we finally came upon what looked like big black specks in the distance.
Stump turned to Bill, "Is that a herd of camels?"
"Sure, I've heard of camels," Bill replied.
"No, no, I mean a camel herd..." Stump said.
Then Bill said, "What do I care what a camel heard? I've got no secrets from a camel."
Today we fly to Jeddah.
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Stump
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
2:33:12 PM
A Travel Note
The walkie-talkies are back. Abdullah sent them over to the airport just before we flew on to Jeddah. I picked them up while we waited for airport security to release Joel -- who was busted for trying to carry on the radio mics. Both (the walkies and the radio mics, not Joel) were then packed into another piece of luggage. The official count now is 20 pieces of checked luggage, plus nine carry-ons (including the camera), amounting to a total weight of slightly over half a ton. Just thought you'd like to know.
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Maps
Wednesday, October 9, 2002
5:12:01 PM
West Side Story
So we’ve made it to Jeddah, the other major city in Saudi Arabia along the Red Sea. Jeddah is said to be more cosmopolitan and “liberal” than Riyadh since it lies along the “incense trail” where Yemeni and Saudi traders trafficked regularly with Egyptians, Palestinians and Europeans along the Mediterranean in the olden days.
This
town is gorgeous, but what was killer dry heat in the desert is now killer
wet heat that drenches every pit and pore in your body. Jeddah is a waterfront
city with an expansive and grand cornice that features statues, monuments
and marvelous architecture all along its length. Bill's comment was that they
look like they're gearing up for a world's fair.
They've got pony and horse & buggy rides, amusement parks, waterfront mosques, gigantic malls, palatial homes and plenty of hotels ... everything you'd need to entertain the 2.5 million Muslim pilgrims who visit this area every year for the Hajj.
Our first night here we weren't allowed to film anything since we didn't have proper permission from the Western Province division of the Ministry of Information. Soooooo, we went to the souk.
Jeddah is divided into a central 'Old Town' district and a sprawling 'New Town.' Virginia decided we ought to be spending our time in the Yemeni and Afghani souks in Old Town, mainly because she thought she could get more selling their rugs in America.
We hailed a couple of taxis from our hotel and headed out, barreling down the cornice with money steaming in our pockets. We drifted down from the skyway on a ramp leading into one of the most congested areas of the city. Densely compacted storefront shops offer everything from precious gold jewelry to hookah supplies to incense and perfume, auto parts, rugs, weapons, bread and grains, fish, clothes, toys and on and on...
Everyone loaded up with whatever struck his or her fancy. Except for nearly getting smashed by a Nissan 4-door going 25 mph in reverse, we all had a really great time. On the way back to the cab, we saw a bunch of kids playing soccer in the dirt under the skyway. We’ll be back for the shot tomorrow.
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Maps
Wednesday, October 09, 2002
5:39:44 PM
Ministry, Mosques and More Souk
This weather wrecks DVcams. One went down in the desert a couple of days ago. Could be some sand in there. Maybe it just melted in the heat. Today we lost another one -- probably moisture or condensation. We're being extra careful with the rest of our gear.
In the meantime, today was extremely productive.
Stump and I went to the Ministry of Information in the morning. We met with our man, Dr. Zaiml, and, if half of what we talked about goes through, we'll be OK.
Stump
and Zaiml seemed to hit it off pretty good, especially when they started scheming
about how to work together on a Mecca project during the next Hajj. Zaiml
thinks you can make a fortune with a taxi service taking pilgrims the 50 miles
from Jeddah to Mecca. Stump’s got it in his head that the big money’s
in a lemonade stand. So Stump & Zaiml’s Taxi & Lemonade Service
was born -- stillborn, I hope.
Without waiting for the ink to dry on our paperwork, we picked up The Football and headed out to the Prince Sultan Mosque, in a rich new Jeddah suburb, to interview the local Iman Saleh Yaseen.
Yasseen is a young guy, who got his degree in America at Boston University, but he is quickly making a name for himself as a “moderate” in the Saudi religious circles. He connects to the young people, but also knows how to play the game.
His mosque is one of over 100 that Prince Sultan, the Saudi Minister of Defense and second brother of King Fahd, has built in the last few years. He donated it to Yaseen in part, one suspects, to placate Yaseen and keep the clergy in check.
Then it was off to another mosque in another even richer suburb, the King Fahd Mosque, which the King donated to its imam. The place was unreal. Absolutely grandiose, splendid, beautiful and awe-inspiring. We got there just in time for the 3:45 prayer and took some shots inside of the people praying. Then Bill did a walk & talk with the imam and his translator around the inside of the marble laden courtyard.
As
we left, the sun was setting (think “Golden Hour”), so we drove
south along the Red Sea and stopped here and there for one fantastic shot
after another. By the time the early evening prayer had commenced, we bagged
a couple more mosques, three statues, and a woman swimming in her burka!
Finally, it was back to the souk looking for a mosque more in the mainstream of what the ordinary citizens attend. We got some shots of the merchants closing down their stores for the final prayer hour of the day. But our guide from the Ministry of Information put the kibosh on shooting in the storefront mosque -- “Why you want to shoot here? It is too dirty” -- or an interview with its imam, a man more of the people.
Too bad. Stump was pissed. Virginia was really happy. She came back with about $2,000 of rugs and stuff.
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Maps
Thursday, October 10, 2002
3:42:30 PM
Jeddah Day Two
While the rest of the crew went to interview the editor of The Arab News, Khalid Al-Maeena, Virginia and I took the faulty DV cameras to the Sony maintenence center. The helpful and friendly Sony staff had never seen a DVcam before. This would have been cause for great concern except one of the cameras suddenly came back to life as we were filling out the “no can do” paperwork. The other camera's completely screwed, and will be making the trip back to the US with Bill tonight.
In the afternoon, we went on a tour of Jeddah that included King Abdulaziz University--until we got popped for shooting with a permit – and the Al Thagra Model School, the grade school that Osama bin Laden attended in a section of town called Kandarah.
Tonight Bill, Scott and Virginia are rubbing elbows with the elite of the Arab News team while Joel and Greg enjoy each other's company back here at the hotel. I chose to stay in my room, order a pizza and some non-alcoholic beer and add pictures wherever needed in the body of the weblog.
Here are a few that I'm too lazy to re-write into the posts:
Here is our driver, Abdullah from Riyadh.
Joel in the Persian Gulf.
Greg in the Rub Al Khali.
Me, next to a camel.
And Stump, riding one.
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Stump
Friday, October 11, 2002
2:51:59 AM
Jeddah Recap
Stump here. Writing up the short version so you can look at all the goofy pictures Maps posted last night -- while I was out doing the hubbly-bubbly with Bill and the high muckety-mucks.
Jeddah's been a bear to produce. We cobbled together a couple days of it out of two imans, a women's college dean and a whole lot of souk. The image boys are happy. Lots of targets of opportunity. The content department is kind of disappointed that we're not getting deep enough into this Islam thing.
For a boy from Wisconsin, there's a lot to learn in a few weeks. That Quaran is almost as long as the Bible and The Prophet's got a message on everything: how to pray, how to sell your house, how to divide your fortune among your 31 sons depending on which one has what kind of children by how many wives.
The local newspapers all seem to have at least a page dedicated every day to interpretations of Mohammed's- teachings. Sort of like Ann Landers doing a legal affairs column.
Conversations with your usual Saudi citizens proceed along in the friendliest kind of manner, then suddenly you find there's a rule, or a law, or a practice -- women can't sit in the front seat of a car -- that comes from God, via Mohammed, not that his wheels were anything to speak of.
We're headed back to the Prince Sultan mosque this morning for a little more enlightenment. Then it’s off to shoot "scenics" for the rest of the day and on to Yanbu, the west coast oil seaport.
We packed The Football up and sent him back to America last night – something about making tall grass beef the official meat of Kansas required his appearance before the Kansas Legislature.
Our last stop in Jeddah will be to attend the student elections at Effat College for Women. Seems to be a tight race shaping up between the Candy Girl and the Flower Girl, named after the inducements they are offering to get their fellow students' votes. I feel like I'm back in my element.
This is the first time men have been allowed into the college, I’m told. But the interviews probably won't be all that productive without Bill's touch. Just about what you’d expect talking with any teenager: everything is great, the teachers are neat and the future is bright.
Click HERE to read the final part of this series PART FOUR: Mecca and Medinah
