Day 1

It's hard to tell which feelings of anxiety are misplaced.  I find myself in a constant state of self-consciousness.  While walking out of my hotel this morning, I didn't know if I should or shouldn't open the door for a woman walking alone behind me.  I was pretty sure she was a westerner, a fellow English-teacher catching the same private bus as me to work, but I knew others were watching.  I went first, didn't hold the door. Upon arriving at the office and having spoken with the woman (who turned out to be just what I thought), I opened the door  and let her walk in ahead.  I noticed a look of disapproval on the male receptionist's face.  Was it because of that?  Sitting in the conference room I didn't know how to cross my legs.  I knew that pointing the soul of my shoe at anyone was a sign of disrespect, but I didn't know if it was o.k. in the process of crossing my legs or if I kept my legs close enough to point the bottom of my top foot strait down it wouldn't offend.  I crossed them so tightly both feet went numb.  You find yourself doing these things in Saudi, struggling to do anything at all.  At least I do.  At least at first. And that's only for fear of offending someone.  The religious the police, the Mutawwa'în are a whole different story.  It's hard to forget the paper I had to sign recognizing my awareness of what punishments violating certain laws could incur.  Death, dismemberment, beheading.  

The same colleague and I later went on a walk.  We were told the neighborhood our hotel was in was safe and fairly liberal.  One superior even told the colleague that she would be fine walking alone.  Another warned against it.  We decided it best to play it safe.  Keeping in mind that if anyone questioned us we would have to say that we were either husband and wife or mother and son.  We chose the latter given our respective ages, but we were assured no one would question us.  This isn't a village after all.  Our walk was uneventful.  We got kababs and hummus and grape-leaf rolls (all bomb.com).  We got some curious stares but no one really seemed to pay us much attention.  The guy who took our order only talked to me though.  I was supposed to order for us both, and when she paid with money from her own wallet, the man still gave the change to me.  Dealing with women is not something the men of this country are used to.  The only time I felt scared was when we passed an all white van with a green crescent on the side.  "Mutawwa", I thought, and clenched my teeth.  

It will soon, in all likelihood, come to light which ones of my early anxieties will prove to have been warranted and which won't.  One that is without doubt is the one I feel while riding in a car.  In a city where its not uncommon for a couple dozen people to die in a single day from car accidents the sense of your life being on the line is palpable.  I had heard that a fatalistic attitude combined with a sense of entitlement in a city where gas is 12 cents a gallon and everyone drives there own car was a recipe for disaster.  The good news: our driver put his seat belt on.  At least he wasn't putting his life completely in Allah's hands.  People for the most part, from what could be seen in a day, drive at high top speeds-- I'll say that-- but not erratically.  Most change lanes slowly and deliberately- with signals I might add.  The problem is that those deliberate moves are often made under the assumption that another driver will change their trajectory in order for it to be made.  The result is that lane markers become less than obligatory to respect, less than general guidelines for that matter.  Seeing drivers four-wide on a two lane road was commonplace. Overall I think our driver is legit though.  The other drivers and the series of screeching tires I'm currently hearing out my window do less to inspire confidence, but at least I haven't heard them followed by any crunches.